When, weeks back, Obinna Okerekeocha announced the coming of the Naija AI Film Festival (NAIFF), the one question that arose in the mind of the Film Efiko team was this: Is it too early?
We were able to ask the man the question directly in a recent interview. As you would see in the lightly edited text below, Okerekeocha, who has worked in the media space for years and is currently head of content at the financial technology company Moniepoint, appears to have given more than a little thought to how AI will intersect with African filmmaking.
As he puts it, figuring out AI now is “about future-proofing our industry while preserving its soul as it currently stands”.
1. What exactly is the Naija AI Film Festival and why does Nigeria need to have one now?
The Naija AI Film Festival (NAIFF) is Nigeria’s first film festival dedicated to exploring and celebrating the intersection of artificial intelligence and cinema. It’s what I like to call Generative Cinema. NAIFF is a platform for bold experimentation—a space where technology meets storytelling, and where African creatives can begin shaping the future, not just reacting to it.
We need this festival now because AI is already changing the creative and film industry globally. If we don’t begin engaging with these tools intentionally, we risk being left behind—both culturally and economically. NAIFF provides a space for discovery, learning, and creativity that puts African voices at the heart of the AI conversation.
2. Is it a festival that could be embedded in, say, AFRIFF, which is the country’s most popular film festival? Why is it necessary to have it separate?
AFRIFF is doing amazing work, and it has built a respected platform. But NAIFF isn’t just a sidebar event. It’s a full reimagining of what a film festival can be.
The use of AI in storytelling raises technical, ethical, and cultural questions. We need a focused space to address those questions deeply and thoughtfully. By standing on its own, NAIFF creates a dedicated environment where creators and audiences can explore this frontier without dilution or compromise.
3. Talk to us about the application process. How will a filmmaker enter for the festival and what’s the protocol for accepting submissions?
Filmmakers can submit their entries directly through our website. We’re accepting AI-generated or AI-assisted short films across genres like animation, fiction, experimental, documentary. The maximum runtime is 15 minutes for mini-features and 5 minutes for micro-shorts.
Our jury will review submissions based on originality, creative use of AI, storytelling strength, and technical execution. We’ll also host panel reviews and provide feedback loops, especially for emerging creators who are experimenting with AI for the first time.
4. A festival is a rather large thing—or can be. Do we have enough projects using AI to actually make an AI film festival in Nigeria a real thing?
Yes, and we’re just scratching the surface. We’ve already seen early submissions from filmmakers in Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, and the diaspora experimenting with AI tools like RunwayML, Pika, Midjourney, and even custom LLMs.
The beautiful thing about this moment is that you don’t need massive budgets to make an AI-assisted film. You need vision, curiosity, and access. NAIFF is amplifying those early projects and encouraging a new creative wave.
5. What in your view can AI do for Nigeria’s film industry? Are we going to see better films at scale?
AI has the potential to unlock scale and improve quality—particularly in areas like post-production, script development, localization, and visual effects.
But beyond better films, I think AI can democratize storytelling. It can give access to voices that were previously shut out because they didn’t have the funds or the connections. With AI, a teenager in Ibadan can produce a world-class animated short on a smartphone. That’s powerful.
So yes, we will see better films at scale—even better, [we’ll see] lower costs for things like visual effects. Take a look at this video RUNWAY just released.
6. Your website says the festival will “position Nigeria as a leader in AI-powered cinema.” What does this mean for Nollywood as it currently stands?
Nollywood is already an innovation miracle. It’s fast, scrappy, inventive, and creative. But we now have an opportunity to define a new frontier of storytelling, where our cultural depth meets global technology.
This doesn’t mean AI will replace what Nollywood does best. It means we can evolve. We can become pioneers in a new genre of African sci-fi, Afrofuturism, experimental cinema—even global distribution platforms powered by AI. It’s about future-proofing our industry while preserving its soul as it currently stands.
7. The use of AI is still controversial. Shouldn’t we have this conversation before enshrining AI in Nigerian cinema, as your festival seems set to do? Are we moving too fast?
These conversations are critical, and NAIFF is precisely the place to have them. We’re not blindly promoting AI adoption; we’re creating a space to explore the tools, question them, test their limits, and have hard conversations around ownership, bias, ethics, and compensation.
And we’re not moving too fast. We’re being proactive about AI. The rest of the world is experimenting. If we wait too long, we’ll be forced to adopt models that weren’t made with us in mind. There are models, like Asteria, made for Hollywood that is exclusively trained on legally licensed and curated content. There’s no reason we cannot build our systems that are trained on ethically sourced data, where’s there’s collaboration with content/data owners for co-authorship/ownership and split revenues.
8. What do you say to those who believe deploying AI only works if it’s trained on Nollywood content—often without compensating the original creators?
They’re right to be concerned. Cultural data should not be harvested without consent, and creators must be credited and compensated.
This is why we need African-led AI conversations. We need AI policies, datasets, and ethics shaped by Africans for Africans. At NAIFF, we’re committed to spotlighting these issues and pushing for responsible innovation that honors intellectual property and protects creative labor.
9. What results are you hoping to get at the close of your first edition?
We want to spark a movement. Success for us looks like these five things:
- Discovering a new wave of African AI filmmakers and creators.
- Hosting powerful conversations that shape public understanding of AI in culture.
- Building partnerships across tech, policy, education, and the arts.
- And most importantly, positioning Nigeria as not just a user of AI, but a shaper of it.
- Showcasing the potential for new income streams with generative cinema/content for the creative economy.
We would have done our job, if we leave people inspired, informed, and equipped to experiment.
The Naija AI Film Festival takes place on September 13 in Lagos, Nigeria.
