Filmmaker Funke Akindele has recounted how an influencer she approached to promote her 2024 film, Everybody Loves Jenifa, turned down her request for a collaboration.
Speaking during a panel session at the Creative Africa Nexus Weekend (CANEX WKND), Akindele said she was initially hesitant to contact the unnamed influencer but eventually decided to send a message.
She said she waited for almost a week before receiving a response informing her that the influencer’s management had declined the proposed collaboration.
“There was this influencer I reached out to, I sent a message to them that I would like to create content. One, two, three… for almost a week. And I did not want to send this message, this was during ‘Everybody Loves Jenifa’ but I tried and I was like let me send it, so I sent it,” she wrote.
“The person was like ‘I am sorry, my management does not want me to do this’. And I was like ‘I would pay’ but the person ignored me. Then months after, I read that I blocked somebody because of this.”
Akindele has recorded significant box office success with several of her film productions.
In 2023, her film Battle on Buka Street became Nollywood’s highest-grossing title, earning ₦640 million.
In January 2024, A Tribe Called Judah made history as the first Nollywood film to gross ₦1 billion at the box office.
Later that year, Everybody Loves Jenifa set a regional record, becoming West Africa’s highest-grossing film of all time, with ₦1.88 billion in earnings.
Her 2025 film, Behind the Scenes, also crossed the ₦2 billion mark at the box office, setting a record for African cinema.