Nigerian director Ugochukwu Azuya is developing I Live in V.I., a surreal social-class satire about a young woman’s struggle to survive in Lagos after moving there for work. The project was presented at Locarno Film Festival’s Open Doors programme and won the Tabakalera–San Sebastián Film Festival Residency Award, potentially helping it progress towards production.

The film follows 23-year-old Florence, who leaves Akwa Ibom after her father’s death and faces poor housing, exhausting commutes, insomnia and grief in Lagos. She begins sleeping at an abandoned government construction site near wealthy Victoria Island, then tells colleagues she lives there with a forgotten famous aunt; Azuya says the story examines urban alienation, gentrification, inequality and the fading promise of the “Nigerian dream”.