Films From Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa Showing At Sundance Film

The Sundance Film Festival has long been a testing ground for independent cinema that eventually shapes global conversations. Every January, filmmakers from around the world arrive with stories that challenge form, politics, memory, and identity, hoping to find not just an audience but a place in a carefully curated programme.

This year’s festival, running from January 22 to February 1, continues that tradition, and African cinema is once again part of the conversation. These selections are not framed as African representations or cultural side notes.

Each film brings a distinct voice, rooted in specific histories and lived realities, while speaking to themes that travel beyond our borders. 

Read Also: Iconic Nollywood Movies Turning 10 in 2026

Set in the restless sprawl of Lagos, Lady follows a fiercely independent young woman who makes her living as a taxi driver, navigating a city where survival often depends on daily calculation. She earns enough to care for herself and her grandmother, a little victory in a country where many people are forced to choose between basic necessities.

When fuel subsidies are suddenly removed, destabilising her already fragile income, Lady reconnects with Pinky, a childhood friend now entangled in a world of sex work. What begins as a practical decision slowly draws her into a sisterhood marked by both danger and unexpected joy. The film explores how economic pressure, female solidarity, and moral compromise collide in a city that rarely offers easy choices.

Written and directed by Olive Nwosu, Lady is a UK–Nigerian co-production and her debut feature. Nwosu is no stranger to Sundance, having previously screened her short Egúngún (Masquerade), which went on to earn major international recognition. Lady also marks Nigeria’s most significant feature presence at Sundance in recent years, following C.J. Obasi’s Mami Wata. It is an intimate look at womanhood in Lagos that resists performance in favour of emotional truth.

In Kikuyu Land, a Nairobi-based journalist begins investigating a land dispute involving local government and a multinational corporation. What unfolds is not just an exposé but a deeply personal reckoning with history, identity, and inheritance.

For the Kikuyu people, land is inseparable from identity, yet colonial dispossession severed generations from ancestral soil, forcing many to work land they no longer own. Co-director Bea Wangondu approaches this subject with both journalistic clarity and emotional vulnerability. As she documents legal battles, worker testimonies, and dreams of restitution, the film gradually reveals her own family’s buried wounds.

Directed by Wangondu alongside award-winning filmmaker Andrew H. Brown, the documentary balances investigative rigour with reflective storytelling. The Kenyan landscape is captured with care, contrasting its beauty against the violence of historical erasure. 

Kenya’s return to Sundance continues a growing presence for East African cinema at the festival, following recent selections such as How to Build a Library. Kikuyu Land stands out for its refusal to separate public history from private memory, making its political stakes feel human.

South Africa’s contribution this year is Troublemaker, a documentary that revisits the struggle against apartheid through Nelson Mandela's own voice. Drawing from newly recovered recordings made while Mandela was writing Long Walk to Freedom, the film offers an unusually intimate account of a man often flattened by myth.

Directed by Antoine Fuqua and shaped in collaboration with anti-apartheid activist Mac Maharaj, the documentary weaves Mandela’s own words with archival footage, Maharaj’s testimony, and striking animated sequences by Thabang Lehobye. The title references Mandela’s birth name, Rolihlahla, meaning “troublemaker,” reframing his life not as destiny fulfilled but as resistance consciously chosen.

Rather than presenting a familiar heroic arc, Troublemaker examines Mandela’s formation: his early years, political awakening, imprisonment, presidency, and the unfinished work of liberation in contemporary South Africa. By centring his voice, the film restores complexity to a figure often reduced to symbolism, reminding audiences that freedom movements are built through difficult, deeply human choices.

Read Also: Dika Ofoma’s Obi Is a Boy Wins First AFP Critics Prize at S16 Film Festival

Together, these films reflect a broader shift in how African stories are entering global film spaces. As festivals like Sundance continue to open space for these voices, the expectation now is not for isolated appearances, but for a steady future where Nigerian and African indie films show up year after year, telling their stories as they would.