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Following its HBO Max debut in Europe, a Nigerian psychological thriller continues its international march — now heading to French-speaking audiences across Africa and beyond
Just weeks after The Weekend made history as the first independently produced Nigerian thriller to stream on HBO Max in Central and Eastern Europe, the film has secured another landmark deal. Trino Motion Pictures has confirmed that Canal+ has acquired the rights to release the film with French dubbing across more than 60 Francophone territories, with the rollout already under way from 1 April 2026.
The deal was brokered through iFind Pictures, the international sales outfit that has handled previous French-language distribution for Trino Motion Pictures. Under the agreement, the film will be available across Canal+’s linear and subscription video-on-demand platforms, reaching audiences in Francophone Africa, Europe and French overseas territories — giving it access to one of the largest Francophone broadcast networks anywhere in the world.
The scale of the acquisition is difficult to overstate. For an independently produced Nigerian feature film, a simultaneous release across 60-plus Francophone territories represents an extraordinary level of commercial reach — one that would have been almost unimaginable for a Nollywood film a decade ago.
“From the outset, our ambition was to create a film that could travel — a story rooted in Nigeria but universally understood,” said Uche Okocha, Managing Director of Trino Motion Pictures. “To now see the film reach audiences across such a wide range of territories is incredibly meaningful, and speaks to the growing global demand for African stories told at scale.”
Directed by Daniel Oriahi, The Weekend follows Nikiya (Uzoamaka Aniunoh), an orphan driven by a need to belong, who convinces her fiancé Luc (Bucci Franklin) to take her to meet his estranged family. The visit that was meant to be a beginning quickly becomes something far darker, as buried secrets and unsettling family customs begin to surface. The film’s ensemble cast — including Meg Otanwa, Keppy Ekpenyong-Bassey, Gloria Anozie-Young, Damilola Ogunsi, James Gardiner and Bryan Okoye — lends the story the kind of layered, ensemble gravity more associated with prestige international cinema than regional genre output.
Since its world premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival, where it became the first independently produced Nigerian film ever selected by the prestigious New York event, the film has screened at the BFI London Film Festival, Screamfest and the NollywoodWeek Film Festival in Paris. It picked up 16 nominations at the 2024 Africa Movie Academy Awards, winning in categories including Best Film, Best Nigerian Film, Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography.
The Canal+ deal arrives at a moment when the broader argument for African genre cinema as a globally viable commercial asset is no longer theoretical. Premium African films are increasingly attracting the kind of multi-territory, multi-platform acquisition strategies previously reserved for Hollywood or European arthouse titles. For Canal+ — which holds a dominant position across Francophone African broadcasting — the acquisition also reinforces the network’s investment in African-originated content as a strategic priority rather than a niche consideration.
For Trino Motion Pictures, which is approaching its tenth anniversary, the cumulative effect of these deals marks a meaningful transition: from a Lagos-rooted production company into a studio with genuine international distribution infrastructure and a growing track record of placing African stories on the world’s major platforms.
For Francophone audiences across West and Central Africa, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, DR Congo, Cameroon and beyond — as well as in France and its overseas territories — The Weekend is now within reach. The question being asked increasingly in industry circles is no longer whether premium Nigerian cinema can travel. It is how far it still has to go.
Vivian Asamoah
