The upcoming Nollywood crime thriller Black Market, starring Lateef Adedimeji and Linda Ejiofor-Suleiman, will premiere on September 26 at Tafawa Balewa Square in Lagos, with organizers targeting 50,000 attendees in an official attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the largest attendance at a single film screening.
Record-Breaking Ambition
The current record stands at 43,624 people, set in October 2015 when Iglesia Ni Cristo gathered that number at the Philippine Arena in the Philippines for the premiere of Felix Manalo. If successful, Black Market's premiere would mark the first time the record has been broken since it was set nearly 11 years ago.
The film follows a group of people whose lives become entangled through a cross-border smuggling operation, exploring themes of survival, loyalty, and the consequences of operating outside the law.
Cast and Production Details
Produced by Rixel Studios in partnership with FilmOne Entertainment and Signet Ring Studios, the premiere brings together an ensemble cast including Itele D Icon, Scarlet Gomez, Omowunmi Dada, and Uzor Arukwe, alongside a supporting lineup of emerging talents. The film was directed by Fatimah Binta Gimsay, who also co-wrote the script alongside Abdul Tijani-Ahmed.
Speaking on the project, Gimsay described the experience of seeing the film come together after multiple versions of the script. "It is so surreal when you go from what is in your head and see it come to life. We have been attached to different versions of the script, but the final version felt different. We finally felt like we merged all our tones together," she said.
Director's Background and Event Partners
Gimsay is the founder of Hello July Films and has written for several Nigerian primetime television titles, including Africa Magic's Battleground and Riona, as well as season five of MTV Shuga Naija. Black Market marks her second feature film as writer and director, following Lowkey Adults, which came out in 2025.
The premiere event has drawn a lineup of corporate partners, including MTN, Puma, Swoop, Oraimo, and Shuttlers, alongside the Lagos State Ministry of Culture, reflecting the scale of the logistics required to pull off a screening of that size.
If the attempt succeeds, it would mark one of the biggest single-day cultural events in Nigerian entertainment history and a rare instance of a Nollywood production entering the Guinness World Records books outright.
