NollywoodWeek Paris 2026 Is Screening a Film About the Apo Six Killings. Twenty-One Years Later, the Story Is Finally Being Told on Film.
NollywoodWeek Paris 2026 has selected a film about the 2005 Apo Six killings -- six unarmed Nigerians shot at a checkpoint, five officers eventually convicted. Twenty-one years later it reaches cinema. The May Paris screening puts it in front of European buyers at the Cannes-adjacent market.
On the night of June 7, 2005, six young Nigerians were shot dead at a checkpoint in Apo, Abuja. The official version called them armed robbers. The truth, established through investigation, inquest, and eventual prosecution, was different: they were unarmed, returning from a night out, and were killed by officers of the Nigeria Police Force. Five officers were eventually convicted. The case became one of the most significant extrajudicial killing prosecutions in Nigerian legal history.
Twenty-one years later, NollywoodWeek Paris 2026 — running May 6 to 10, ahead of Cannes and the Marché du Film — has selected for its programme a film based on that night and its aftermath. The festival’s own description places it clearly: “On June 7, 2005, a night of celebration turned tragic when six friends, the Apo Six, crossed paths with a Deputy Commissioner of Police — leading to a harrowing true story of power, injustice, and loss.”
The selection is not a theatrical premiere announcement. NollywoodWeek has historically served as a staging ground for films navigating the gap between festival exposure and domestic distribution — the platform where Nigerian films find European audience relationships and, sometimes, distribution deals. The Weekend‘s journey to HBO Max passed through NollywoodWeek. The festival’s positioning ahead of Cannes is deliberate: it places Nigerian filmmakers in proximity to the international buyers who attend the Marché.
The decision to make this film at this moment carries specific weight. The EndSARS movement of 2020 drew a direct line between decades of police violence and a generation’s refusal to tolerate it. The audience that will encounter the Apo Six film in 2026 has lived through Lekki Tollgate, through investigations that chose protection over accountability. The 2005 story is historical. The mechanisms it describes are not.
NollywoodWeek’s 2026 partnership with the Nigerian International Film Summit means the Paris screening happens in a room where European buyers with commercial infrastructure to move a film to wider audiences are present. A film about something that happened in Abuja in 2005 may find its way to screens in contexts that 2005 could not have anticipated.
NollywoodWeek Paris 2026 — May 6–10, 2026. In partnership with the Nigerian International Film Summit, Canal Plus, TransPerfect, and the French Embassy in Nigeria. Full film slate announced in coming weeks.
