For Damilola Osikoya, film and travel are not as different as they appear. One transports people across continents while the other carries them into unfamiliar lives, emotions, and perspectives. Both industries, she believes, are rooted in movement and human connection. It is a philosophy that has guided a career spanning entrepreneurship, production, and storytelling, allowing her to build a unique path that bridges two worlds often viewed as separate.
Over the years, that approach has influenced a body of work that includes projects such as The Wedding Guest, Ruin the Friendship, A Weekend Fiasco, and Evi. This year, she added another milestone to her growing résumé with her directorial debut, the short film Macchiato. While the projects vary in genre and scope, they are connected by a curiosity about people and the experiences that shape them, a curiosity Osikoya traces back long before she entered the film industry.
“They are both about emotion, movement, perspective, and human connection,” she says of film and travel. “Travel moves people physically while film moves them emotionally.”
That perspective was largely influenced by her upbringing in Ibadan, a city she describes as rich in culture, history, and artistic expression. Growing up in such an environment sharpened her ability to observe people, pay attention to conversations, and notice the small details that reveal who they are beneath the surface. Long before she encountered film sets or production schedules, she says she was already fascinated by human behaviour and the stories hidden within everyday life.
“There is history, art, music, literature, language, drama, even the way people communicate feels layered and expressive,” she recalls. “Storytelling for me started long before film. Over time, that emotional lens evolved into visual storytelling and film production.”
Before making her mark in Nollywood, Osikoya built a successful career in an entirely different industry. As the founder of Voyagequest Travels, a travel company that grew into one of Nigeria’s fast-rising travel-tech platforms, she spent years developing systems, managing operations, and navigating the complexities of running a business at scale. While the experience strengthened her entrepreneurial instincts, it also clarified a creative desire she could no longer ignore.
“Creatively, I still felt pulled toward storytelling and visual culture. I didn’t want to ignore that part of myself anymore,” she says.
Rather than leaving one world behind for another, Osikoya carried the lessons she had learned in travel into filmmaking. The structure, problem-solving skills, customer understanding, and operational discipline required to run a business became valuable assets in production. Those experiences eventually led to the creation of Switch Visuals Productions, a company she describes not as a spontaneous career change but as an intentional extension of a broader vision.
“I also think Africa needs more people who understand both business and creativity,” she says. “We need sustainable creative ecosystems, not just talent.”
That commitment to sustainability informs the way she views the Nigerian film industry. While Nollywood continues to expand its influence locally and internationally, Osikoya believes the industry’s growth has often depended on the resilience of filmmakers working within difficult conditions. Independent producers, in particular, are frequently required to navigate inflation, unstable exchange rates, infrastructure challenges, and uncertain distribution pathways, often while trying to maintain creative quality.
“Nigerian filmmakers are some of the most resourceful creatives in the world because we have had to learn how to create excellence without ideal conditions,” she says.
Among those challenges, financing remains one of the most persistent. For many producers, securing funding involves building trust, demonstrating credibility, and cultivating long-term relationships before meaningful budgets become available. Osikoya says projects such as Evi were made possible through partnerships and strategic collaborations rather than waiting for ideal circumstances. Like many independent filmmakers, she has witnessed how producers increasingly rely on grants, personal investments, deferred payments, and hybrid financing structures to bring projects to life.
“Traditional financing structures are limited, and many investors still see film as high risk because they do not fully understand the business model behind storytelling and intellectual property,” she explains.
Despite those obstacles, she believes progress is being made. She points to growing interest from institutions, brands, and international organisations that are beginning to recognise the cultural and economic value of African storytelling. That shift has created opportunities for filmmakers to access support that was previously difficult to secure, although she believes much more work remains to be done before sustainable systems become the norm.
“What gives me hope is that conversations are changing,” she says. “Institutions, brands, and global organizations are beginning to understand the cultural and economic value of African stories. But there is still a long way to go in building systems that truly support filmmakers sustainably.”
One example of that changing landscape came through a project supported by a partnership between CcHUB and Africa No Filter, backed by the Gates Foundation. According to Osikoya, the project’s focus on representation within the music industry resonated strongly with the organisations involved. Beyond the financial support, she says the partnership provided the kind of structure and validation that can significantly expand what filmmakers are able to achieve creatively.
“Having institutional backing changes a lot operationally and creatively,” she says. “It gives room for stronger structure, deeper development, and bigger ambition.”
The ability to manage complex projects is a skill Osikoya developed long before many of her film productions. One of the most formative experiences of her career came through her involvement in delivering Nigeria’s participation in two FIFA World Cups. The assignment required coordinating logistics on a massive scale while balancing the expectations of multiple stakeholders, often under intense pressure and with little room for error.
“When you are coordinating something connected to the World Cup, there is very little room for error,” she says. “You are managing timelines, movement, emotions, stakeholders, unexpected situations, and public expectations simultaneously.”
The experience reinforced lessons that continue to shape her work as a producer today. Whether she is overseeing a film production or a large-scale event, Osikoya says she is constantly reminded that audiences rarely see the enormous amount of work required to create a seamless experience. What they encounter is the finished product, not the countless decisions, challenges, and adjustments made behind the scenes.
“It also reinforced something important: audiences only see the final experience, but behind every seamless moment is an enormous amount of invisible work.”
That understanding extends to distribution, an area she considers one of the most important conversations currently taking place within African cinema. For Osikoya, a successful release cannot be measured solely by opening weekend figures. While box-office performance matters, she believes filmmakers must also think about audience connection, cultural relevance, and a film’s ability to endure beyond its initial release.
“For me, success is not only about opening weekend numbers,” she says. “It is also about cultural longevity, audience connection, conversation, and global reach.”
As viewing habits continue to evolve, she argues that filmmakers must embrace multiple pathways to audiences rather than relying exclusively on traditional theatrical releases. Streaming platforms, international festivals, community screenings, and audience-building initiatives all play important roles in ensuring films reach the people they are intended to serve.
“The audience already exists,” she says. “The challenge is building stronger systems between creators and audiences.”
Underlying all of these conversations about business, production, and distribution is a deeper creative mission. At the centre of Osikoya’s work is a commitment to telling stories that reflect the complexity of women’s lives. Rather than reducing female characters to familiar archetypes, she is interested in exploring the contradictions, ambitions, vulnerabilities, and imperfections that make people feel real.
“Being a Nigerian woman has made me deeply interested in complexity, and I am drawn to stories that allow women to exist fully; ambitious, flawed, angry, vulnerable, funny, layered, contradictory and real,” she says.
She sees that commitment as both a creative choice and a response to historical limitations in representation. For generations, many African women have been confined to simplified narratives that fail to capture the breadth of their experiences. Storytelling, she believes, offers an opportunity to challenge those limitations and create space for more authentic portrayals.
“A lot of African women have historically been forced into simplified narratives, and I think storytelling has the power to challenge that.”
Her experiences navigating both business and film production have further influenced that perspective. Working in demanding industries has taught her how to negotiate value, establish authority, and protect her sense of self while operating in spaces where expectations can be high and opportunities hard-earned. Those experiences inevitably shape the stories she chooses to tell and the characters she is drawn to explore.
“You learn how to navigate rooms, negotiate value, build authority, and still protect your humanity in industries that can be extremely demanding,” she says. “That perspective naturally influences the way I approach storytelling, leadership, and character development.”
For inspiration, Osikoya continues to look everywhere. Sometimes it comes from a film, other times from a conversation overheard while travelling, or from observing the ways people move through different environments and experiences. Lately, she says, she has been particularly interested in stories that balance intimacy with scale, narratives that feel deeply personal while still speaking to universal truths.
It is a fitting ambition for someone whose career has been influenced by movement, curiosity, and connection. Whether working in travel, producing films, or developing new stories through Switch Visuals Productions, Osikoya remains focused on building work that resonates across borders while staying grounded in authentic human experiences. And at the heart of that vision is a simple but powerful goal: creating stories that allow women to exist fully, both on screen and beyond it.
