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Aniunoh and Franklin shine as Nikiya and Luc, delivering exceptional chemistry in moments of love and terror. Ogunlade's chilling score enhances the genre-bending atmosphere, keeping the tension high throughout. The explosive finale unveils shocking family secrets, challenging the audience's patience for the reveal.

You never really know someone until you meet their family. It is a crucial step towards building a lifelong, forged bond before entering into matrimony. But what happens when the in-laws-to-be hold a nightmarish secret? Director Daniel Emeke Oriahi tackles the consequences of meeting a family-to-be in his Nigerian horror film, The Weekend. With a team of creative writers including Egbemawei Dimiyei Sammy, Vanessa Kanu, and Freddie O. Anyaegbunam Jr., Oriahis feature comes with genre bending and overwhelming suspense capable of entertaining and shocking its viewers.

The Weekend (2024)

Director Daniel OriahiRelease Date June 9, 2024Writers Egbemawei Dimiyei Sammy, Vanessa Kanu, Freddie O. Anyaegbunam Jr.Cast Gloria Anozie, Keppy Ekpenyong-Bassey,...

The horror of introducing a new partner to one’s family is a very real thing. We all have skeletons in our closets; embarrassing relatives, trepidation about showing someone where we come from, rituals and traditions that we only realize are strange once we strike out into the wider world. In his new film, The Weekend, Nigerian filmmaker Daniel Oriahi follows one such sojourn a rather unique heart of darkness where it only takes a couple of days to expose a deadly family secret. Nikya (Uzoamaka Aniunoh) and Luke (Bucci Franklin) are a happy, recently engaged couple with a bright future ahead. Nikya was orphaned young and has always longed for a family to call her own, and though Luke’s family remains largely intact, he’s long...

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The family that slays together stays together in Nigerian director Daniel Oriahi’s “The Weekend,” a bloody thriller about a woman who discovers a shocking secret about her soon-to-be in-laws. Variety has been given exclusive access to a clip from the movie ahead of its world premiere in the Midnight section of the Tribeca Festival, which runs through June 16.

Produced by Uche Okocha of Trino Motion Pictures and executive produced by Babatunwa Aderinokun, “The Weekend” marks the fourth theatrical release from Oriahi and was written by Egbewamei Sammy, Vanessa Kanu and Freddie O. Anyaegbunam, Jr. New York-based The Film Sales Company is repping world sales. Here’s an exclusive first look:

Speaking to Variety from Lagos, Oriahi dished on the evolution of Nigeria’s ragtag Nollywood industry, his crash course in the “Roger Corman film school” and the long journey from Lagos to the starry heights of New York’s premier film fest.

Shot in dense, high-contrast black and white, writer-director C.J. “Fiery” Obasi’s “Mami Wata,” unspools like a mysterious dream. It’s both inscrutable and hypnotic, delivering indelible images while remaining narratively opaque. Billed as a “West African folklore,” its story could be taken as a straightforward fable about tradition vs. modernity and how power corrupts. But as its plot unravels, confounding layers surface beneath that easy explanation. “Mami Wata,” a Sundance discovery selected to be Nigeria’ official Oscar submission, keeps the audience entranced if never truly engaged.

Taking its cues from the legend of the female water spirit revered in that part of the world, Obasi’s story centers on Mama Efe (Rita Edochie), a medium and healer who claims to hold the keys to the all-powerful Mami Wata. The inhabitants of the isolated oceanside village shower Mama Efe with crops and gifts in an effort to win over the water deity.

Discontent stirs in a village that has rejected modern life to follow a faith healer said to be the representative of the title’s water spirit

This visually beautiful and charismatically acted film is a fierce expressionist reverie or parable of power, shot in a lustrous, high-contrast black-and-white by cinematographer Lílis Soares. It is the work of Nigerian director Cj “Fiery” Obasi, whose nickname makes an interesting elemental contrast to his movie’s watery theme. His storytelling urgency and stripped-down minimalism reminded me at various stages of George Orwell and Julie Dash.

We are in a west African village called Iyi, which has ignored the modern world of science and technology in favour of worshipping the traditional water spirit Mami Wata, through her intermediary and representative on Earth, faith-healer Mama Efe (Rita Edochie), to whom tributes of food and money must be paid. But Efe’s daughter Zinwe (Uzoamaka Aniunoh...

Exclusive: The Gotham Group has signed Nigerian filmmaker C.J. Obasi, whose latest feature Mami Wata is Nigeria’s entry for Best International Feature Oscar in the 96th Academy Awards.

Mami Wata world premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in its World Cinema – Dramatic section, where it won the cinematography prize.

Award-winning filmmaker Obasi’s previous credits include Ojuju (2014) and O-Town (2015), which screened at various festivals, including Gothenburg and Fantasia.

His short film, Hello, Rain (2018) premiered at Oberhausen and over 40 festivals, winning a Jury Prize at Fantasia, and the BFI Short Film Award nomination. Juju Stories (2021), an anthology film directed by the Surreal1 Collective, won the Boccalino D’oro Award for Best Film at Locarno.

Set in a remote West African village, Mami Wata follows the villagers who worship the Mermaid-deity Mami Wata and look for guidance from their healer Mama Efe (Rita Edochie), her daughter Zinwe (Uzoamaka Aniunoh) and protégé...

One of the most visually ravishing movies I saw at Sundance Film Festival early this year was C.J. “Fiery” Obasi’s Mami Wata, “A West Afrikan Folklore,” as our exclusive debut of the alternate poster notes. The black-and-white Nigerian feature brings a folk-futurist style to the tale of a battle between opportunistic militants promising technological progress and a matriarchal spiritual order living in fragile harmony with the ocean. Picked up by Dekanalog for a theatrical release beginning on September 29 at Bam in NYC and Chicago’s Gene Siskel Film Center, the film will expand in the weeks to follow.

Here’s the official synopsis: “In the oceanside village of Iyi, the revered Mama Efe (Rita Edochie) acts as an intermediary between the people and the all-powerful water deity Mami Wata. But when a young boy is lost to a virus, Efe’s devoted daughter Zinwe (Uzoamaka Aniunoh) and skeptical...

Director Cj “Fiery” Obasi (Ojuju) is back this year with the black & white Nigerian film Mami Wata, and Bloody Disgusting has been provided with the exclusive trailer reveal today.

Dekanalog brings Mami Wata to U.S. cinemas on September 29, 2023. The Sundance darling is currently 100% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with 16 reviews posted at this time.

Here’s the official plot synopsis…

“In the oceanside village of Iyi, the revered Mama Efe (Rita Edochie) acts as an intermediary between the people and the all-powerful water deity Mami Wata. But when a young boy is lost to a virus, Efe’s devoted daughter Zinwe (Uzoamaka Aniunoh) and skeptical protégé Prisca (Evelyne Ily Juhen) warn Efe about unrest among the villagers. With the sudden arrival of a mysterious rebel deserter named Jasper (Emeka Amakeze), a conflict erupts, leading to a violent clash of ideologies and a crisis of faith for the people of Iyi.

Growing up has always been a process of reconciling the drive for progress with the inscrutable value of things past. Most viewers outside the Fon coastal communities of southern Nigeria, where this film is set, will find themselves leaning strongly towards the perspective of its youngest protagonist, Zinwe (Uzoamaka Aniunoh), at least to begin with, as she rails against her mother Mama Efe (Rita Edochie), the local priestess, for accepting the loss of children to the sea as a sacrifice, for prioritising her religious beliefs over comforting a grieving mother. There are things which Zinwe doesn’t understand, however, and she is about to get a brutal lesson in the ways of the world.

Shot in gorgeous black and white – it won the Jury Prize for cinematography at Sundance - Cj ‘Fiery’ Obasi’s poetically realised film explores the importance of faith irrespective of fact, and the need for an openness.

Exclusive: Dekanalog has picked up North American rights to the Sundance competition title Mami Wata, the third feature film from Nigerian filmmaker C.J. “Fiery” Obasi.

Based on West African mermaid folklore and mythology, Mami Wata is set in the remote West African village of Iyi, where Mama Efe (Rita Edochie) acts as an intermediary between the people and the all-powerful water deity Mami Wata, the synopsis reads. However, doubt is sown amongst the people when a young boy is lost to a virus, with Efe’s devoted daughter Zinwe (Uzoamaka Aniunoh) and skeptical protégé Prisca (Evelyne Ily Juhen) at a crossroads. The film picked up the Special Jury Award for Best Cinematography at Sundance.

The pic was shot entirely in the Mono Department in Benin, West Africa. The principle cast features Evelyne Ily, Uzoamaka Aniunoh, Kelechi Udegbe, Rita Edochie, and Tough Bone. Further credits include cinematography by Brazillian Dp Lílis Soares,...

One of the best showcases of international cinema every year, the Museum of the Moving Image’s First Look festival is now in its 12th edition and we’re pleased to exclusively unveil the lineup. Taking place from March 15-19 at the hallowed Queens theater, the selection features 38 works, including 19 features representing more than 22 countries.

Highlights include some of our favorites on the festival circuit in the past year: at long last, the New York premiere of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Cannes prize-winner Tori and Lokita, along with other victors Rodeo and The Eight Mountains; recent Sundance premieres Babak Jalali’s Fremont, Mary Helena Clark & Mike Gibisser’s A Common Sequence, and C.J. “Fiery” Obasi’s Mami Wata; Lucrecia Martel’s new short Maid; Gastón Solnicki’s A Little Love Package; Koji Fukada’s Love Life; and much more.

MoMI Curator of Film Eric Hynes said, “The guiding...

In C.J. “Fiery” Obasi’s Mami Wata, black becomes a canvas onto which the director paints a propulsive and vivid narrative. The shade takes on new roles and meanings in this feature about brewing ideological differences in a fictional West African village. Black shadows the waves crashing the shores as one character contemplates the fate of her people. Black sharpens the designs drawn in white paint on the faces of villagers. Black portends the sinister, the vengeful, the hopeful and the renewed faith swirling within an allegory for the slow creep of modernity.

The film takes place in Iyi, the village where Mami Wata, the water deity of West Africa and its diaspora cultures, has reigned via her intermediary Mama Efe (Rita Edochie) for decades. Obasi begins his wily, supernatural tale with generational tension: Mame Efe’s daughter Zinwe (Uzoamaka Aniunoh) storms out of their home after her mother...

Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Dekanalog releases the film in select theaters on Friday, September 29.

Mami Wata is a multifaceted figure whose personae is as diverse as the diaspora that venerates her. A patroness of beauty, money, and all things that ebb and flow, she’s sometimes depicted as being half-woman, half-fish. At other times, she’s shown with a gigantic serpent wrapped around her shoulders. She’s a relatively new deity who arose between the 15th and 20th centuries, a period when Africa became heavily involved in global trade. Her name comes from pidgin English, the language of commerce, and translates as “Mother Water.” She’s a water spirit, ruling over the seas that separated captive Africans from their homes and brought foreign people and influences to African shores, and she can be as benevolent or as cruel as the ocean itself.

Seven years before its Jan. 23 world premiere in Park City — the first-time that a homegrown Nigerian feature has scored a coveted slot in the World Cinema Dramatic competition at Sundance — C.J. Obasi’s “Mami Wata” began with a vision.

The director was sitting on a West African beach, in between projects and contemplating his next move. Suddenly, an apparition came to him: A mermaid standing on the ocean’s shore, beckoning to a mysterious young woman behind him.

“It was really vivid,” Obasi says. “It was in black and white. In the vision, the goddess’ eyes are red, but also very soft. There was a kindness to her eyes. When I came to, I said, Ok, so my next movie is ‘Mami Wata.’”

What followed was a personal and professional journey to understand that moment on the beach, and to breathe life into a movie about the titular mermaid-deity of West African folklore.