The 2026 Korean Film Festival in Abuja has placed Nigerian filmmakers at the centre of Korea–Nigeria cultural diplomacy, with locally produced short films drawing on Korean culture to tell distinctly Nigerian stories of resilience, family, love, grief and survival.
The three-day festival, organised by the Korean Cultural Centre Nigeria (KCCN), is being held from September 17 to 19 at Silverbird Cinemas, Abuja, bringing Korean feature and short films together with works produced by emerging Nigerian filmmakers.
Beyond exposing Nigerian audiences to the depth and diversity of Korean cinema, the festival is providing a platform for Nigerian creatives to engage with Korean culture and reinterpret it through their own experiences.
A major attraction of the festival is the screening of winning entries from the inaugural KCCN Short Film Contest, which attracted submissions from 21 contestants across Nigeria.
The First Prize went to Lagos-based filmmaker Maryam Abiola for Too Loud, a 10-minute fiction film examining emotional abuse, resilience and a young woman’s journey towards independence.
Inspired partly by the resilience of the Haenyeo, the female divers of Jeju Island, the film combines a Nigerian personal narrative with an element of Korean cultural heritage.
The Second Prize was won by Jude Francis Terkuma of the Department of Theatre and Cultural Studies, Nasarawa State University, Keffi, for Unspoken, a romantic drama about two university friends struggling to express their feelings for each other.
The film incorporates Korean popular culture while exploring friendship, vulnerability and love.
Opara Barbra Ifeoma of Abuja emerged third with I’ll Do It For You, which follows a young woman preparing to travel to Korea on a scholarship linked to a culture cherished by her late mother.
Through Korean music, food, language and cultural experiences, the film explores grief and the process of embracing a cultural legacy left behind by a loved one.
Two other Nigerian productions received Special Mentions.
MARKED, a documentary by ThankGod Amah of Lagos, explores identity, survival and resilience through the experiences of a young girl affected by hardship, spirituality, illness, poverty and family instability.
I No Be Ashawo, a drama by Buari Olalekan of Lagos, examines childhood neglect and abuse and how difficult experiences can influence survival choices later in life. Told in Pidgin English with English subtitles, the film also seeks to provoke conversations around child protection, accountability and community responsibility.
The inclusion of the Nigerian productions alongside Korean films underscores KCCN’s emphasis on a two-way cultural relationship, in which cultural exchange is not limited to introducing Korean artistic works to Nigerians but also creates opportunities for Nigerian creativity to interact with and reinterpret Korean cultural experiences.
The festival opened on Thursday with the Nigerian screening of The King’s Warden (왕과 사는 남자), a 2026 historical drama directed by Jang Hang-jun.
Set in 1457, the film tells the story of deposed King Danjong during his exile and has recorded substantial commercial success in South Korea.
Figures from the Korean Film Council showed that by September 3, 2026, the film had recorded 16,921,889 admissions across 2,262 screens, generating approximately $120.39 million in box-office revenue.
Friday’s programme featured The Book of Fish, directed by Lee Joon-ik, and Move the Grave (이장), directed by Jeong Seung-o.
The Book of Fish, released in 2021, centres on scholar Jeong Yak-jeon, who is exiled to Heuksan Island during the Joseon era and develops an unusual friendship with a young fisherman through an exchange of knowledge.
Move the Grave, released in 2020, follows four estranged sisters who reunite after learning that their father’s grave has to be relocated because of a modernisation project. Their search for their brother becomes an exploration of family, memory and unresolved relationships.
The festival concludes today, Saturday, with the showcase of the KCCN Short Film Contest winners and selected Korean short films, followed by the screening of Lucky Chan-sil, directed by Kim Cho-hee.
The film follows a film producer who unexpectedly loses her job after the death of the director she has worked with for years. As she confronts uncertainty over her career and future, new relationships and experiences force her to reconsider her priorities and aspirations.
Speaking through the festival initiative, KCCN is also using cinema as a platform for deeper people-to-people engagement between Nigeria and South Korea, particularly among young people, students, filmmakers and cultural enthusiasts.
The festival features Korean feature films, Korean short films and the Nigerian short-film competition entries, while a raffle draw at each screening is providing an additional attraction for audiences.
The festival is being held at Silverbird Cinemas, 1161 Memorial Drive, by Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Central Business District, Abuja.
With Nigerian filmmakers now telling local stories through creative encounters with Korean culture, the festival is emerging not merely as a showcase of Korean cinema but as a platform for cultural dialogue in which audiences and creatives from both countries meet through film.
