Simisolaoluwa Akande

From Nigeria to England, Simisolaoluwa Akande’s fascination with the art of storytelling crossed continents before expressing itself through film. Now a multi-award-winning filmmaker her films embrace a deeply collaborative and intimate approach to storytelling that provides black stories the space to be told and retold. Her breakthrough short,  Ojumo Ti Mo, is an autobiographical documentary that delves into the immense gravity of grief and its effects on her family, captured over a series of phone conversations. The film won the 2020 BFIxWe Are Parables film competition and was awarded  Best Documentary and Film of the Year and the 2021 Waterspirite festival. Further, it was selected as a competition film at the London Short Film Festival 2022. Her experimental film, Dudu, which explores the destabilizing effects of colourism through spoken word and poetic images, took home the 2021 BFI Future Film Festival award for Best Experimental Film. 

Simisolaoluwa secured a commission via BFI’s Doc Society to direct a documentary film, The Archive: Queer Nigerians, which has been selected to shown at prestigious film festivals:  Aesthetica, Encounters, IDFA, S16 Film Festival (Nigeria), Afykamera (Poland).  In 2023, the film received a Best Short Documentary nomination at Raindance and was BIFA Longlisted.  The film won Best Short Film at the London Film Festival, Best Short Documentary at the Norwich Film Festival and Best Documentary Short at New York International Women Festival.