Michael Omonua Biography
Michael Omonua is a British-Nigerian film director, screenwriter and cinematographer whose precise, thoughtful work has helped expand the possibilities of Nigerian cinema beyond mainstream formulas. Based between Lagos and London, he has built a reputation through carefully crafted short films and collaborative features that prioritise atmosphere, local languages and quiet intensity over commercial conventions.
Early Life and Background
Omonua grew up in the United Kingdom, where an early interest in cinema took root. Around the age of eleven or twelve he already knew he wanted to make films. Secondary school film studies classes and an after-school film club deepened that interest, introducing him to British propaganda films from the 1930s and 1940s as well as wider world cinema. He later enrolled at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, Surrey, earning a BA in Film Production and graduating around 2008.
After university he began making short films in England. In 2010 a planned temporary trip to Nigeria for a funeral turned into a permanent move. Settling in Lagos, he found himself starting over in an industry where he initially knew few people, yet the shift gave him the space to develop a distinct voice rooted in Nigerian realities while drawing on international influences such as Satyajit Ray, Yasujirō Ozu, Robert Bresson and the French New Wave.
Career Journey
Working independently, Omonua wrote and directed a series of short films that screened at festivals including the London Short Film Festival, Africa International Film Festival and Made in Nollywood in Bordeaux. Early titles included Talk (2010), The Block (2011), Sun Eje / Bleed (2014), Born (2016) and Yahoo Boy (2016). Talk earned a Vimeo Staff Pick. These projects explored themes of morality, desire and social pressure with a restrained visual style.
In 2016 he co-founded the Surreal16 Collective with directors Abba T. Makama and C.J. Obasi. Inspired by the Dogme 95 movement, the group issued a playful yet pointed manifesto of sixteen guidelines that rejected wedding films, slapstick comedy, melodrama, cliché witch doctors, fake foreign accents and religious propaganda. Instead they called for genre experimentation, surreal elements, indigenous languages and stories told from an African perspective. The collective later launched the annual S16 Film Festival in Lagos as a platform for arthouse work.
Omonua served as director of photography on Makama’s The Lost Okoroshi, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019. That same year his debut feature, The Man Who Cuts Tattoos, had its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival. His short Brood screened at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2018, and Loop Count appeared at the British Film Institute.
Notable Works and Achievements
His 2021 short Rehearsal marked a significant step forward. The film, a tightly observed look at the performative side of a Lagos Pentecostal church preparing a staged miracle, premiered in competition at the Berlinale. It went on to screen at more than fifty festivals and collected major awards, including the Oscar-qualifying Grand Prize for Best International Short Film at Kurzfilmtage Winterthur and the Luna de Valencia award at Cinema Jove.
Also in 2021, Omonua directed the “Love Potion” segment of the anthology feature Juju Stories, co-created with Makama and Obasi. The film premiered in competition at the Locarno Film Festival, where it won the Boccalino d’Oro independent critics’ prize for Best Film. It later received further recognition at the Africa International Film Festival. Juju Stories is available on Prime Video.
Omonua is developing his second feature, Galatians, a satirical drama expanding on themes from Rehearsal. The project has received development support from La Fabrique Cinéma du Monde (the first Nigerian selection for the Cannes-linked programme), Realness Institute, MIPCOM Africa, Fame Week and the Atlas Workshop at the Marrakech Film Festival. He continues to advocate for technical standards and personal voice in Nigerian independent filmmaking while remaining selective about commercial projects.
Personal Life
Public details about Omonua’s private life remain limited. He has spoken about his dual base in Lagos and London and his ongoing commitment to building a body of work that feels authentic to him. He is a co-founding member of both the Surreal16 Collective and the S16 Film Festival.
Omonua’s measured approach and festival success have given Nigerian arthouse cinema greater visibility on the international circuit. His films demonstrate that stories grounded in everyday Nigerian experience can travel far when told with clarity, craft and a refusal to follow the expected path.
Quick Facts
- Real name: Michael Gouken Omonua
- Date of birth: Not publicly confirmed
- State of origin: Nigerian (British-born)
- Occupation: Film director, screenwriter, cinematographer
- Years active: 2010–present
