Allison Nuel on “The Boy Who Gave”: Inside His Inspiring Journey to AFRIFF with His Debut Feature Film

Allison Nuel remembers the moment his first feature film came alive. “I watched the film a million times in my head,” he tells The Nollywood Reporter with quiet pride. His debut feature, The Boy Who Gave, made its first public screening at the Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) on November 7 at Landmark, Lagos. It is a milestone for a filmmaker who has spent years building quietly toward this point.

Before this, Nuel had made a name for himself with short films like Daddy Lessons, Something Happened in 2011, and La Dama De La Mafia. Daddy Lessons won the United Nations Nigeria Short Film Competition and a Young Professionals in Film and Television Award sponsored by Sony Pictures, earning him early recognition. But it wasn’t those wins that pushed him toward a feature. It wasn’t enjoyable.

After acting in a film where his performance didn’t match what he had envisioned on screen, he decided he could make something better. “I was like, do you know what? I can make this film better,” he recalls. That moment of frustration became the seed for The Boy Who Gave.

The story began with something small but unforgettable. One morning while visiting his mother’s home in Bonny Island, Rivers State, Nuel noticed a boy of about twelve, casually dressed, walking his younger siblings to school. The image stayed with him:  the quiet sense of responsibility, the unspoken weight of being the firstborn in many African homes. Though Allison is the lastborn, he has often seen that dynamic among friends and family. That single sighting became the foundation of his script. He opened his phone, wrote a line, and kept building. Over seven months, the idea grew into a full screenplay.

He sent drafts to his collaborators, the line producer, art director, and production designer, refining it through six versions before calling it final in December. By January, pre-production had started. The team began making trips from Lagos to Port Harcourt, then by boat to Bonny Island, where the film was eventually shot. The process was demanding, but Nuel says he wanted it that way. He directed, produced, designed the production, styled the costumes, and even played the lead role himself. “I knew every frame before we got there,” he says. “So even when I was acting, I could see the film.”

The cast combined both familiar and new faces. Nuel had written one of the key roles for actor Jukes Joseph, someone he admired and knew could embody the character. Other actors were discovered through open auditions on Bonny Island; many had never faced a camera before. They were trained weeks ahead of production, he reveals.

“I didn’t care about having celebrities,” he says. “I wasn’t casting for marketing; I was casting for truth.” That decision gave the film a grounded, lived-in texture that Nuel insists could not have been achieved in a Lagos studio or with a typical Nollywood cast.

The film was shot over twenty days on location, with Femi Okusongwu, CEO of House Giver Studios, serving as production consultant. Nuel credits his mentor’s guidance for keeping the process smooth, especially since he wore many hats. “Everything worked,” he says. “From the shots to the sound to the set, it felt like everyone knew what we were doing.” His control over the project extended through post-production, where he was involved in editing, color grading, and sound. “The film I made is better than the film I wanted to make,” he says with a quiet smile.

For a 23-year-old filmmaker, who will turn 24 in the next 48 hours (November 10), Nuel’s debut stands out for its setting or ambition and what it represents. In an industry where many young directors stay in short-form work for years, The Boy Who Gave shows a leap of faith and a commitment to telling stories rooted in everyday life. The choice to film in Bonny Island rather than Lagos also reflects a shift happening among Nigerian independents, a turn toward regional filmmaking that finds authenticity in place rather than spectacle.

His earlier short films were self-funded, and he still talks about one that paid off beyond expectation. “So, yeah, it really put a lot of money in my pocket,” he says, laughing. “I think I made it with a small amount of money, like 200K. But then it puts millions back, like thousands of dollars back in my pocket.” That success convinced him that telling honest stories, even on modest budgets, could be fulfilling and profitable.

Now, with The Boy Who Gave at AFRIFF and already submitted to other international festivals, he sees it as the beginning of a new chapter. “I was making short films for competitions,” he says. “Now I’ve dropped shorts. I’m making features.”

The story he tells, of a boy burdened by responsibility, love, family, and sacrifice, might seem simple, but it cuts deep into the emotional heart of Nigerian family life. It’s a story about duty and identity, and what it means to give more than you have. “Sometimes you just see a boy walking his siblings to school,” Nuel says. “But behind that, there’s a whole life we never ask about.” That life, and that boy, are what The Boy Who Gave wants us to see finally.