Nigerian filmmakers Toyin Abraham, Niyi Akinmolayan and Ini Edo have accused cinema operators of deliberately undermining their films through unfavourable screening times and alleged ticketing misconduct.
Ms Abraham, whose film “Oversabi Aunty” is currently showing in cinemas, alleged that some exhibitors assigned her movie poor screening slots while redirecting audiences to other films.
“They sell another ticket to people and take them to my movie hall,” she said, accusing cinemas of fixing her film for early morning and late-night slots that hurt its commercial performance.
“Some cinemas will give you 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. A 10 a.m. showtime, how do you expect it to sell?” she asked.
A commenter under one of her social media posts also alleged that customers who paid to watch “Oversabi Aunty” were sometimes issued tickets for other films instead.
Mr Akinmolayan accused cinema operators of advertising “Colours of Fire”, selling tickets and then failing to screen the film.
He later expanded on X, stating that while cinemas are free to set their screening schedules or even decline to show a film, they should not sell tickets and then refuse to screen the movie, describing the practice as unethical.
The filmmaker threatened to publicly name the cinemas involved if the issue continued.
“If by end of day you don’t fix up, I am going to name all the cinemas that have Colours of Fire on their website, collected money from people and are refusing to show them the film,” he wrote.
Ms Edo, making her debut as a film producer with “A Very Dirty Christmas”, said the experience had been frustrating and emotionally draining.
She posted videos on Instagram of moviegoers complaining about cinema practices and described the situation as emotionally exhausting.
“Nigerian cinemas, this has been exhausting,” Ms Edo wrote.
“As a first-timer, I learned on the go with humility and commitment, yet faced intentional frustration despite the sacrifice and investment poured into this project. But God is bigger than every barrier, bigger than gatekeeping and intimidation.”
