London Film Academy-trained Nigerian independent filmmaker, Ms Olohije Oyakhire, has founded a film society, Visions, with a mission to spotlight cinema and stories from Africa and Latin America.
Ms Oyakhire believes Visions will create a community of film enthusiasts eager to explore stories that reflect shared histories and cultural intersections.
The society’s ambitions is primarily to augment the decentralisation of film consumption and discourse: be it away from the top film-Woods or even the geographical monotony of Lagos.
The filmmaker told Business Post that Visions would add to the film ecosystem and landscape outside of Lagos, to screen films that are not widely accessible to get at least one more person to see these films, to have discussions and debates about these films, to give creatives a community in this city and majorly everywhere down south.
The choice of Africa and Latin America are not farfetched, these are two regions often overlooked in global film discourse.
Visions, through curated screenings, themed discussions, and supplementary materials, will be looking to further bridge the gap.
“What makes us stand out is that we screen African and Latin American films. From my study I have seen the way both regions have had their post colonial experiences seep into their filmmaking and I think it’ll be very interesting to explore the similarities between the films from both regions,” she told this newspaper.
“Films from the global South are not as widely seen, widely watched and widely accessible. It’s why film scholars such as Solanas and Gentino came up with the Third cinema manifesto in the 60s,” she added.
The inaugural edition of Visions, themed Narratives of Journeys will be hosted in collaboration with Art in the Garden City and Alliance Française, Port Harcourt.
The first screening will feature two titles: Journey Mercies (2023, United Kingdom), a short film directed by Tomisin Adepeju, about a UK-based library cleaner planning a final return to Nigeria, his birth country; and Chez Jolie Coiffure (2018, Belgium/Cameroon), a feature documentary directed by Rosine Mbakam, set in a hair salon in the African Matonge district of Brussels, where customers gossip and share difficult stories of immigration. The selected films explore different perspectives of migration and belonging, resonating deeply with contemporary global realities.
The first edition of Visions is free and open to the public and will take place at Alliance Française, Port Harcourt, on November 15, 2025, at 3 p.m. (Nigerian time).