Olive Nwosu Has a Global Vision for Nigerian Stories

Shalom Tewobola 14:51 - 04 March 2026

Olive Nwosu says she wants the film to exist on its own terms, enter into conversation with a global audience, and spark meaningful dialogue at home.

Olive Nwosu was born in Lagos, Nigeria. At 26, she moved to the United States. Between her time in the United States and her base in London, she has built a filmmaking practice deeply rooted in Nigerian identity, one she is deliberate about carrying into every story she tells.

Her conviction gave rise to Troublemaker (2019), an Igbo-language short featuring non-professional actors that made history as the first Igbo film to screen on the Criterion Channel. It continued with Egungun (2021), her Columbia film school graduation project, which went on to screen at both Sundance and TIFF.

Her latest film, Lady, arrived as the only Nigerian feature to screen at this year's Sundance Film Festival, before traveling to the Berlinale. Competing in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition, it took home the Special Jury Award for Acting Ensemble, a remarkable feat for a cast of largely emerging talent, including Jessica Ujah, Amanda Oruh, and Tinuade Jemiseye, among others. Nwosu approaches Nigerian cinema with clear-eyed optimism.

When asked what she hopes Lady will achieve, she tells me she wants the film to exist on its own terms, to enter into conversation with a global audience, while sparking meaningful dialogue at home in Nigeria.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

You were born in Lagos, raised in Nigeria, trained in New York, and now live in London. When you sit down to write, which version of yourself shows up first, and how do you negotiate all those selves when you're making films?

That’s a great question, and I don't fully have the answer but I hope that the version of myself that sits down is the integrated version of myself, which is complicated. Nigeria first, but so much of my film education has happened in America and Europe, and now so much of my family life is happening here in London. So it’s almost like a split across different cultures, and for a long time, I didn't know how to accept it. Lots of questions that also reflected in my work. Like where do I belong, what is my identity?

These days, there is an easier acceptance of that identity, sitting with a multifaceted identity of being born in Lagos, going to school in the States, living in London. When I’m writing about Nigeria and Lagos, I go back to write and that always helps. Being there and touching base just gives it a better rhythm.

Troublemaker became the first Igbo-language film on the Criterion Channel. How did you pull off making an Igbo-language film from abroad, and what did the choice of Igbo over English or Pidgin mean to you creatively and politically?

Again, great question. My dad is still in Nigeria, and my mom was in Nigeria for a long time. She recently moved to the UK. So even though I haven't been based in Nigeria for many years, I'm still so connected to it. And I would go back all the time. Making Troublemaker was easy for that reason, because the sense of community was still there.

We shot in Ugbenu, which is a little village near Awka, where our family home is. And so Troublemaker was really a return to that ancestral home, ancestral language, capturing a version of the east of Nigeria that's disappearing.

It was about really preserving and recording that version of the East, celebrating it, but also kind of critiquing it, like, what's under the surface. Because bubbling underneath that is history and trauma and real, real conflict that I don't think has been fully resolved.

For Lady, you spent two months living alongside sex workers in Lagos before rewriting the script. That kind of closeness with a vulnerable community carries real ethical weight.

How did you navigate the tension between making an honest film and protecting the dignity and safety of the women who trusted you?

Thank you for saying that. The ethical process was always front and centre for me. Before making narratives, I worked in documentaries, so I was already used to thinking deeply about duty of care, how you build trust, create safe spaces, and portray people with dignity.

During the research for Lady, we worked with a trusted local community member who the women already knew. I relied on her guidance in introducing me and understanding everyone’s comfort levels.

It was important that the women were fairly compensated and that consent was ongoing, they could choose what to share, and releases were signed only after everything was complete. I made sure we were always in women-centered spaces, treating them with respect and as full human beings.

When we moved into production, I wanted that same care for the cast. The subject is complex in Nigeria, and asking actors to take it on requires trust. So we worked with a psychologist from the beginning to design the process and ensure the women were emotionally prepared. We also had an intimacy coordinator throughout production, someone focused both on crafting intimacy thoughtfully on screen and on making sure the set felt safe and respectful.

All of this mattered because when people feel protected, they can be vulnerable. And that vulnerability is what creates real connection on screen. For me, the core question was always: how do you invite people who are often pushed to the margins to be fully, emotionally themselves, and honor that truth with care?

Photo: Kory Mello (Obscured Pictures)

Lady was financed by the BFI, Film4, Screen Scotland, and others, essentially a British institutional infrastructure for a Nigerian story. Do you think that funding architecture shapes the film, even subtly?

We did have primarily British funding, but not all foreign funders are the same. For me, it was about being clear from the start that this film had to feel deeply of Lagos, deeply Nigerian. If that’s clear in the script, the treatment, the lookbook, then you’re inviting financiers who believe in that vision. Ideally, the right funders say yes because they want that specificity.

And how do you guard the film's Nigerian soul when the money is largely coming from elsewhere?

Of course, filmmakers need money, but finding the right financiers matters. If they don’t align with the soul of the project, it becomes a struggle throughout. I was lucky to have producers who would fight for the vision when decisions got tough, people who understood why the cultural integrity of the film mattered.

You've spoken about being tired of how African cities, especially Lagos, are often portrayed in cinema: the pastoral ideal, the poverty porn, the "exotic" framing. How does an authentic Lagos look and feel like on screen to you, and how did you fight for that in Lady?

An authentic Lagos to me is very contemporary. And what I mean by that is it's dynamic. There's a lot going on, like so much youthful energy, so much cultural creation and consumption. In terms of the feel and rhythm, Lagos is bold. Lagos is colourful.

Lagos is a coastal city on the water, and that gives it a real island feel. Lagos is noisy and so vibrant and alive. 20 million people in the heat is no joke. And so how you really capture and create that energy. There's almost like a bubbling under the surface. Everyone is hustling and living hard. So that was the version of Lagos that I wanted to capture.

Lady centres women surviving — and resisting — in deeply unequal circumstances. How much of that story is personal to you?

Lady is very personal to me. As a young woman navigating life, I connect with her desire for agency, freedom, sisterhood, and having a voice. I also share that tension with Lagos, loving it, wrestling with it, feeling frustrated by its complexities. It was important to me to hold the darker themes alongside the transformative power of care. I’ve experienced how healing care and sisterhood can be in my own life, and I wanted that to live inside the film.

How conscious are you of the responsibility that comes with being one of the few Black British-Nigerian women directing at this level?

In terms of responsibility, I feel it deeply. I want to tell emotionally resonant stories about people who’ve been invisible, and to do it with honesty and beauty. When I left Nigeria, I was shocked by how few nuanced images of Africa and Nigeria existed on the global stage.

That absence really fuels my passion for storytelling. I want to tell stories about, you know, our interiority and our collective presence. I want to do it with real cinematic beauty and do it ethically.

You made Troublemaker in 2019, Egúngún in 2021, and Lady premieres in 2026. That's seven years of building to this moment. What kept you going through that stretch, and what do you know now about sustaining a creative vision across that kind of slow, uncertain timeline?

To be honest, I love it. I mean, I think this is the work. It takes time and care, deep thought and research to make a film like this. I'm fortunate that I have the financial support from funders to do it. But this whole time, it's the love of the story, the love of the form, and the love of cinema that's kept me going and I wouldn't really have it any other way.