Faithia Balogun has spoken openly about the challenges she is facing with certain cinemas over her movie, Efunroye.
The veteran Nollywood actress and producer shared her frustration during a TikTok Live session, accusing some exhibitors of denying her film proper showtimes. Although she did not mention any cinema by name, she explained that the situation has taken a financial toll on the project.
Faithia revealed that when one of her actors visited a theatre for a scheduled meet-and-greet, staff told them that Efunroye was not on the schedule. According to her, the cinemas are trying to push her movie out, even though it has been in theatres for less than a month. 
According to her, the cinemas want to push her movie out even though it has not spent up to one month in the cinema.
She said:
“My actor went to one cinema today, and they told my actor that Efunroye was not on the list for the meet-and-greet. The movie has not spent one month in cinemas, and you already want to remove it. They believe that if they give me poor showtimes, I will leave.”
Faithia insisted that she would not back down because she invested heavily in the project.
She stated, “I am here to stay because I suffered and spent a lot on this movie. Even if they give me bad showtimes, I know people will still come out to watch it.”
The actress also claimed that many people in the industry already know what happens behind the scenes, but some refuse to speak up. She expressed frustration over the amount of money filmmakers spend on production, only to face obstacles after releasing their movies in cinemas.
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Speaking partly in Yoruba, Faithia said she knows the people influencing cinemas behind closed doors and allegedly telling them which movies to support.
“Do you think we do not know what is happening? Everybody keeps quiet and acts like nothing is wrong. We spent a lot of money producing these movies after people encouraged us to bring them to cinemas. Now that we have done that, some cinemas are frustrating us,” she stated.
Faithia also revealed that she constantly calls and begs cinemas for better showtimes for her movie, questioning why cinemas would treat filmmakers badly when both parties benefit financially from successful screenings.
According to her, some actors who visited cinemas for promotional activities discovered that the venues had either changed the movie’s showtime or completely removed it from the schedule. She added that the situation has caused her a lot of stress.
Was Toyin Abraham Right?
Toyin Abraham and Niyi Akinmolayan raised similar concerns to Fathia in December 2025.
At the time, Toyin Abraham produced a movie called Oversabi Aunty, which went on to gross ₦1.16 billion at the box office. She and Niyi complained that some cinemas refused to give their movies favourable showtimes. Many fans misunderstood their complaints and accused them of seeking public sympathy to promote their films.
Despite the backlash, both filmmakers insisted that cinemas treated some productions unfairly. Faithia’s recent comments now appear to support the concerns Toyin Abraham and Niyi Akinmolayan raised earlier, as more filmmakers continue to speak about the difficulties they face in Nigerian cinemas.
Are Cinemas Sabotaging Nollywood?
Funmi Onuma, the Managing Director at Silverbird Cinemas, stated that Nigerian film distributors, not just cinema operators, are largely responsible for the dysfunction and poor commercial performance of movies in Nollywood.
In an open letter, she wrote: “The loudest narrative right now is that cinemas are the villains suffocating your hard work, burying titles with terrible showtimes, or rushing them out before they can even breathe. But let’s pull back the curtain and talk about the actual, systemic failure that is truly strangling your films: Your Distributors.”
She further explained that many of the issues producers blame cinemas for are actually the result of a chaotic, unstructured, and deeply unprofessional distribution system.
“As a cinema operator, I have sat through programming meetings on a Thursday morning—less than 24 hours before a release weekend—still negotiating showtimes for films dropping the next day,” Onuma revealed. “We have had distributors ask us to program a title on the very day it is meant to premiere. Let that sink in.”
Faithia’s recent statements prove that Toyin Abraham wasn’t just crying wolf in late 2025; she was exposing a real Nollywood crisis. But while actresses and producers blame cinemas for sabotaging their work with poor showtimes, industry insiders are pointing the finger squarely at distributors.
Distributors bridge the gap between cinemas and filmmakers. In Nigeria, they include major players such as Silverbird Film Distribution, FilmOne Entertainment, Nile Entertainment, and Genesis Pictures.
However, because many of these distributors also own cinema chains, they frequently prioritise their own releases or Hollywood studio contracts, leaving independent filmmakers to scramble for the leftovers.
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