Tooth, a short film by Nigerian filmmaker Dika Ofoma, has won the Final Cut: New African Shorts prize at the 30th Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, earning the filmmaking team an invitation to participate in the Short Film Corner | Rendez-vous Industry at the 2027 Cannes Film Festival.
The film was selected from four projects representing Ethiopia, Nigeria, Madagascar, and Senegal, pitched at the festival, which ran from 3 to 8 November 2026 in Switzerland.
Final Cut is a new work-in-progress programme created jointly by the Locarno Film Festival’s Open Doors and the Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur to support African short films in post-production. This programme is open to projects from 42 African countries, and it aims to give global visibility to promising new films. Its 2026 edition was presented under the theme “Most Anticipated African Shorts for 2027,” and only one project is chosen each year.
Directed by Dika Ofoma and produced by Nkali Films and Idunoba Entertainment, Tooth explores the unfair burdens placed on youth and the role of superstition. In its jury statement, the panel praised the film’s sensitive portrayal of childhood, family dynamics and the unequal distribution of responsibilities within the household, similarly, it also highlighted the film’s subtle social perspective and promising cast, expressing hope that the additional support would help the filmmaker realise his creative ambitions.
Dika Ofoma is a writer, culture journalist and filmmaker known for intimate, observational stories about Nigerian life.earlier shorts, A Quiet Monday and God’s Wife, have screened at Winterthur and the International Film Festival Rotterdam. His debut feature project, Kachifo (Till the Morning Comes), also won awards at Locarno Open Doors in 2025.
This prize adds to a run of international recognition for Ofoma as Tooth heads toward completion.
