Nigerian Satire 'I Live in V.I.' Wins Top Locarno Open Doors Award
A Nigerian social-class satire about a young woman squatting in an abandoned Lagos construction site has won the Tabakalera-San Sebastian Film Festival Residency Award at the 2026 Locarno Film Festival's Open Doors co-production platform (The Hollywood Reporter, 15 August 2026).
The film, I Live in V.I., is directed by Ugochukwu Azuya and produced by Olubunmi Ogunsola of Lagos-based company Ensemble (The Hollywood Reporter, 15 August 2026). It was showcased as a work-in-progress in Open Doors' 2026 edition, which focused on films from Africa. Open Doors — the festival's co-production workshop and platform for filmmakers from underrepresented regions — selected six feature projects in development, with on-site activities running from 5 to 12 August in Locarno (Locarno Film Festival, Open Doors FAQs).
The story follows Florence, 23, who leaves her small town in Akwa Ibom for Lagos after the sudden death of her father to take a job in hospitality. Faced with poor living conditions, a punishing commute to Victoria Island (the wealthy Lagos district known as V.I.), insomnia and unprocessed grief, she squats in an abandoned government building site from the 1980s — and tells her colleagues she lives in V.I. with a once-famous aunt. The film is described as a surreal social-class satire with a Möbius-strip structure, exploring grief, urban alienation and gentrification through what its creators call the lost hope of the Nigerian dream (The Hollywood Reporter, 15 August 2026).
Azuya drew the story from his own time in Lagos. He said his inspiration came from living as a young person in a "materialistically driven, classist society" and from the young working-class people he met there, mostly women. His previous short film, Swimming in Sea of Trauma, was released in 2023 (The Hollywood Reporter, 15 August 2026).
The Tabakalera-San Sebastian residency, awarded after the project was presented at Open Doors, gives the team a development stint tied to the San Sebastian Film Festival's creative hub in Spain's Basque Country — a tangible step toward finishing the film and a potential European premiere further down the festival circuit.
I Live in V.I. is among the first titles from Ensemble, a production company launched by Azuya and Ogunsola (Variety, 4 August 2026). The Locarno festival's June 2026 press release announcing the Open Doors selection described the project as "a sharp social satire about urban space and gentrification" (Locarno Film Festival).
For a film about the distance between where someone works and where they can afford to live, an award that bridges continents feels fitting.
