Damilola Orimogunje’s Dear Ajayi has won two independent prizes presented during the 83rd Venice International Film Festival.
The film recieved the Bisato d’Oro Award 2026 for Best Cast & Performances and the 38th CICT-UNESCO Enrico Fulchignoni Prize,accompanied by the Fellini Medal.
In its citation, the CICT-UNESCO jury described Dear Ajayi as “a work of great human depth on the drama of emigration” in Nigerian society “in full evolution.” The jury also praised the lead performances and Orimogunje’s direction as a sign of Nigerian cinema’s growing international presence.
Orimogunje and the Mayana Films received the prizes in Venice..
The wins follow Dear Ajayi’s world premiere in Giornate degli Autori, the independent Venice sidebar where it became the first Nigerian film selected. The film premiered on September 10.
Set in southwestern Nigeria in the late 1990s, Dear Ajayi follows estranged sisters, Ade and Titi Ajayi, who are forced back together to care for their paralysed mother. Bimbo Akintola and Tosin Adeyemi lead the cast.
Orimogunje wrote and directed the film, producing it with Ajah Enene-Orimogunje and Bose Oshin under his Lagos-based company, 2O9INE Films.
It is Orimogunje’s second feature, following his 2020 debut, For Maria Ebun Pataki, which premiered at Film Africa in London, won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature, later streamed on Netflix and received six Africa Movie Academy Award nominations.
Dear Ajayi opens in Nigerian cinemas on Friday, November 13, 2026.
