What do you need to make a good film? It helps to have a good story, talented actors, and a brilliant director. But there’s another professional to reckon with: the film editor. They’re the ones to take all of the footage and turn it into an engaging movie. And, as everyone knows, editing is the only cinematic discipline that wasn’t in existence before cinema.
In honour of these relatively unsung heroes, here are the film editors that shone the brightest for Nollywood cinema in 2024. The list is presented in alphabetical order.
Martini Akande – Christmas in Lagos
With the announcement of the AMVCA 2025 nominees, Martini Akande has become a twice-nominated film editor at Africa’s most visible awards. His work in Christmas in Lagos has him once again paired with his frequent collaborator Jade Osiberu. Unlike his work on 2022’s Brotherhood and 2023’s Gangs Of Lagos, both Osiberu directed or produced projects, Christmas in Lagos, a romcom set in holiday season, calls for cuts that are more subtle but engaging enough from scene to scene in a film that largely features people talking. It’s a tricky thing to juggle but Akande delivers.
Holmes Awa – Soft Love
Holmes Awa won the AMVCA award for picture editing in 2023. But he has been one of Nollywood’s editing talents before that honour. Last year, he directed his first feature, Soft Love, a romantic comedy about a South African online relationship specialist. The film partly takes place on the internet, which puts a burden on an editor to skillfully navigate atmosphere and, well, quite a bit of emojis. Awa works it out nicely and yet retains the lightness of touch that a romcom demands.
U. Ehizoba Chris – The Weekend
There’s a gorgeous scene in The Weekend where dusk appears to materialise/emerge from an interior scene seamlessly, as though the dark outside and the terror within are kin. The hand behind that visual poetry is U. Ehizoba Chris. It is flourishes of that sort that earns Chris a mention on this list. If the best visually appealing films appear to be work of three heads—director, cinematographer, and editor—fused as one, then Chris’s work on this film is a shining example of that idea.
Afolabi Olalekan – Freedom Way & A Ghetto Love Story
2024 was Afolabi Olalekan’s year. His first feature as a director, Freedom Way, got selected to appear at the Toronto International Film Festival. He was the editor of that film. He was also the editor of A Ghetto Love Story, one of 2024’s best Nollywood films. His work across both projects is exemplary in its apparent simplicity. In the latter, his transition from scene to scene in the poor neighbourhood where the bulk of the story takes place is integral in setting the mood for the surprising third act.
Clarence Peters – Inside Life
Clarence Peters is the master editor. It has just taken him a long time to show up outside of the music video space that made his name. His work in the Netflix series Inside Life has to be seen to grasp just how brilliant he is at making things happen on the screen. In the very first episode of the series, he sets a scene in the Lagos underworld and uses his skill at editing and cinematography to underline a tense moment that ends in unexpected violence. That scene would be enough to earn him a place on this list. And yet, throughout the series, his skill at cutting scenes, embellishing them, and putting them together is always apparent.
