For Nwamaka Chikezie, To Adaego With Love began with an interest in people, culture, history and the choices people make when life becomes complicated.
That interest shaped her approach to the historical drama, which marked her feature directorial debut. Set in post-war Nigeria, the film required Chikezie to work within a period different from her own while telling a story that still needed to feel immediate to a contemporary audience.
“I am drawn to stories that feel personal but speak to something bigger,” she says.
That instinct has now earned her recognition from the Directors Guild of Nigeria. At the 2026 DGN Awards, Chikezie won Best Feature Film Director and Best First-Time Director for To Adaego With Love, giving the filmmaker two major wins on the night for her first feature.
The recognition was unexpected for Chikezie, who says her attention during production was largely on getting the film made.
“Personally, it was surreal. Omoooooo raised to power 1000 lol!” she says.
“Directing a feature film had been a long-held goal for me, so actually getting to do it was already a huge deal. There was a lot of fear, uncertainty and excitement going into my first feature, so winning both awards was incredibly humbling.”
The Best Feature Film Director award carried a particular significance because of where the recognition came from.
“Professionally, it felt special because it was recognition from fellow directors and people who understand what it takes to bring a film to life,” she says. “I was honestly shocked by the Best Feature Film Director award.”
For a first-time feature director, she says, there was also an element of disbelief.
“You don’t necessarily expect to compete with filmmakers who have been doing this for years, so it felt like a huge encouragement, but also a responsibility.”
Bringing 1975 to 2026
The scale of To Adaego With Love presented a different kind of challenge from the shorter projects Chikezie had directed before.
The film is rooted in a specific period of Nigerian history, meaning the production had to account for its setting while keeping the emotional lives of its characters at the centre.
“The biggest uncertainty was the scale of it,” she says. “It was a historical film set in post-war Nigeria, so there was the period setting, the complexity of the themes and the need to make everything emotionally authentic.”
For Chikezie, authenticity was not something she could achieve alone.
“I navigated it through preparation, collaboration and trusting the talented people around me,” she says. “Nobody wakes up knowing how to direct their first feature. You learn as you go, but you have to prepare as much as possible and give it 100%.”
That preparation extended to the question of how a story set decades ago could connect with people watching it now.
One of the questions guiding her approach was simple: “How do we bring 1975 to 2026?”
The answer was not to make the period feel contemporary, but to find the human emotions within it.Chikezie is interested in stories that allow audiences to recognise themselves, their families or their experiences on screen, while also making them reconsider something they thought they understood, She describes that balance as part of what draws her to filmmaking.
When History Becomes Personal
The historical setting of To Adaego With Love is important, but Chikezie’s interest in history is tied to the people living inside it.
She is drawn to stories about people finding their way across cultural, emotional, historical and personal divides. Identity, belonging, love, memory and reconciliation are recurring interests, but she does not want her films to provide easy answers.Instead, she wants them to create room for audiences to think and talk.
“I think lived experiences and observations are extremely important,” she says. “Stories shape how we understand ourselves, and audiences can sense when something comes from genuine observation or lived experience.”
For her, culture is also more than an aesthetic choice.
“Culture isn’t decoration,” she says. “It’s how people think, how they love, how they argue, how they fear, how they hope.”
That understanding becomes particularly significant when working with a story rooted in a specific historical and cultural period. Rather than treating those elements as details around the characters, Chikezie sees them as part of what determines who those characters are and the decisions they make.
The same philosophy extends to the emotional experience she wants her films to create,she likes seeing people recognise themselves or their experiences in a story. She also values the moment when a film makes someone reconsider a familiar idea.
For To Adaego With Love, the aim was to make history something audiences could encounter emotionally rather than simply observe from a distance.
The DGN recognition, she says, validated that larger creative vision.
“Winning Best Feature Film Director felt like a validation of the entire creative vision,” she says. “When we were making the film, I wasn’t imagining awards. I was mostly thinking about getting through the next shooting day and making sure everyone was contributing to the film.”
Every department, she adds, played a role in the final result.
“We wanted the audience to connect emotionally with the history and the people in it. So when the film was recognised, it felt like maybe that vision had resonated.”
The awards, therefore, became less about proving something and more about receiving reassurance after the uncertainty of making a first feature.
“They’re a beautiful bonus,” she says. “A soothing pat on the back.”
Finding the Director in the Work
Long before To Adaego With Love, Chikezie had worked in different capacities across film production, including as an assistant director and script supervisor. She also directed My Mama Na Ashawo, an experimental short that was nominated for Best Short Film at AFRIFF in 2022 and later won the Audience Choice Award and Best Achievement in Juvenile Performance at the Accra Indie FilmFest Awards in 2023.
The feature, however, offered a different opportunity to understand the filmmaker she wanted to become.
Chikezie is still discovering that identity, but she knows the kinds of stories she wants to keep exploring.
“I think I’m interested in people finding each other across cultural, emotional, historical and personal divides,” she says. “I’m drawn to themes of identity, belonging, love, memory and reconciliation.”
She is also interested in hope, but not necessarily the uncomplicated kind.
“I search for hope,” she says. “My stories don’t necessarily provide easy answers. I like when they invite conversation.”
That approach informs one of her central questions as a director: how to make a story feel human.
For To Adaego With Love, that meant balancing the specificity of its historical setting with emotions that could travel beyond it.The question is not simply whether an audience understands the period. It is whether they understand the people.
Making Room for Women Behind the Camera
For Chikezie, her experience as a woman directing a feature also connects to a larger question about access within the industry.
She believes there has been progress in the opportunities available to women behind the camera, but argues that opportunity has to go beyond allowing women into the room.
“Women can direct at the highest level,” she says. “We need opportunities, trust and access.”
That includes the opportunity to lead larger productions, work with bigger budgets and make mistakes without being treated as proof that women are incapable of handling the responsibility.
“We need chances to lead, make mistakes, learn and grow,” she says. “I would love to see more women trusted with larger projects and bigger budgets.”
For her, the goal is not simply to increase the number of women directing films. It is to make the presence of women in those positions less remarkable.
“A woman director shouldn’t be treated as an exception,” she says.
What Comes After the Win?
The DGN awards may have marked a significant moment in Chikezie’s career, but she does not see them as the destination.What she wants to build is a body of work that remains rooted in Nigerian experiences while reaching audiences beyond Nigeria.
“I want to build a body of work that is culturally rooted and globally relevant,” she says.
For her, stories do not have to imitate international filmmaking to travel.
“I believe stories travel because they’re emotionally honest, not because they imitate what’s trending.”
That leaves room for the historical and contemporary stories she is already interested in, particularly stories about identity and the ways people understand one another.
“I want to tell stories that challenge audiences to see each other differently,” she says.
Directing remains the role she feels most connected to, although she is open to exploring other parts of production.
“Never say never,” she says when asked whether she would take on other filmmaking roles, including producing.
She enjoys the creative and strategic sides of filmmaking, but directing brings together the elements she is most interested in: story, performance, visuals, emotion and collaboration.
“Directing is home for me,” she says.
If there is a legacy she wants the work to leave, it is not necessarily measured by the number of awards collected along the way.
She wants audiences to remember the stories, the characters and the conversations they created.
“If someone feels seen, challenged, comforted or inspired by something I made years later, that means more to me than any award,” she says.
“Awards are wonderful. They sit on shelves. Stories live in people.”
For a filmmaker whose first feature looks back at a complicated period in Nigeria’s history through the lives of people caught inside it, the distinction is telling. Chikezie’s ambition is not simply to make films that are remembered for winning. She wants to make films that give audiences something to remember.
