Mothers of Chibok (2024)

In April 2014, Boko Haram abducted 276 schoolgirls from their school in Chibok, in north-eastern Nigeria. A decade later, Joel 'Kachi Benson returns to the village to follow the women who stayed behind. Yana, Lydia, Ladi and Maryam farm their land season after season to pay for the education of their remaining children, in a region where going to school remains an act of defiance. Between planting and harvest, grief and hope, the film portrays a community of mothers who refuse to be defined by tragedy alone.

Joel 'Kachi Benson is a Nigerian filmmaker and a pioneer of immersive storytelling in Africa. Trained at London's Central Film School, he founded JB Multimedia Studios in Lagos. His VR documentary Daughters of Chibok (2019) won Best VR Immersive Story at the Venice International Film Festival, a first for an African filmmaker. In 2025, Madu, the Disney Original Documentary he co-directed with Matt Ogens, received the Emmy for Outstanding Arts & Culture Documentary, a first for a Nigerian documentary. His second feature, Mothers of Chibok (2024), won the Encounters Al Jazeera Award for Best African Feature Documentary and was released in cinemas across Nigeria and Ghana in 2026.