“I approached Red Circle as ‘What would I want to see in another person’s film? Let me do it’. If I want to be on someone else’s project, this is how I feel like I would want to be treated, and that was the way I approached it.” – Nora Awolowo
By Vivian Nneka Nwajiaku
If you haven’t heard about Red Circle, you might just be living under a rock. The new thriller, which just had its premiere on the 31st of May and is coming to cinemas on the 6th of June, has been making waves not only for its unique marketing but also for the visible synergy between both cast and crew.
Produced by Nora Awolowo and writer, Abdul Tijani-Ahmed, Red Circle follows a journalist from a privileged background as she works to expose a powerful crime syndicate, at grave risk to herself and those who are close to her. The film takes on themes of crime and corruption while also exploring love, family, and friendship.
Red Circle marks a major milestone for Awolowo, making her feature film producing debut. Already acclaimed for her eye behind the camera, Awolowo recently made history as the first Nigerian woman nominated for Best Cinematography at the 2025 Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards (AMVCA), for her work on Lisabi: The Uprising (2024).
At the helm is director Akhigbe Ilozobhie—better known as Akay Mason—for whom Red Circle represents an additional genre to a growing body of work that is already diverse, from dramas like Elevator Baby (2019) and comedies such as Bank Alert (2023), to rom-coms like Love in a Pandemic (2023) and even a sci-fi/time travel film, Day of Destiny (2021).
Leading the Red Circle cast is Folu Storms, a multi-hyphenate talent who has worn several hats—as a lawyer, a radio host and presenter, and an actor. She stars alongside Omowunmi Dada, a performer who has been acting as far back as her university days when she studied Creative Arts at the University of Lagos.
There’s a palpable chemistry and an incredible energy among the cast and crew of Red Circle—a dynamic that fuels the film’s impact and can clearly be felt by anyone who comes into their orbit.
In this conversation, Afrocritik sits with Nora Awolowo, Akay Mason, Folu Storms, and Omowunmi Dada to talk about the making of Red Circle, its vision, marketing, and the collaborative spirit that brought it to life.
Before we get into Red Circle, let’s start from the very beginning. Can you share a bit about your background and how it led to your career in film?
Nora Awolowo: My family grew up watching Africa Magic Yoruba and those telenovelas that we were always watching every Thursday. But we were also rooted in the CD and DVD culture where you go to rental places to rent a Yoruba film. For me, that was quite fascinating.
From childhood, I said I wanted to be a banker, then when I grew up, I wanted to do other things still in the same financial services. So, I went to school to study accounting, not even banking. Then, I got into school, we went into one long ASUU strike, and I met a friend that was just like, “So what will you do to make good use of your time?”
Then, I really enjoyed photography, I enjoyed architecture, I enjoyed seeing spaces and understanding the symmetry. If you see my films, you’ll see certain choices of symmetry. I enjoyed looking at things from a place of it being fascinating. And that was how I got into it.
I get bored easily so I try to do things that just pass my energy. And I thought, “Okay, what’s in the same media space that encourages [what] I wanted to go for?” It made sense, cinematography. We now had women in photography, we already had T. Y. Bello, that people were able to look up to, but you could not look at yourself and say there’s somebody that has gone before you (in cinematography).
I’ve not found it very easy, but I think it has been better than what I probably expected. I was happy to do anything and even take pay cuts to just be on set to learn. It was a different learning curve from being a photographer. I started from shooting documentaries. I was doing brand projects. Then I started doing behind-the-scene work in Nollywood. And I was like, “Okay, this is interesting, you can do big stuff.”
For me, if people are not going to give you the kind of things that you want to shoot, why not create that platform that you want people to see that you’re capable of doing it yourself? If I’m saying I want to shoot a thriller and I’m not getting it, why not just gather your friends and do good stuff?
That was how we came about Red Circle. This idea that I’d had, and I just said ‘Let me share with my friends.’ We came back to it again and we re-worked it with other friends. And here we are, two three years after.
Akay Mason: I fell in love with film properly, I think I was like fifteen or so, when my uncle took us to the cinema to watch Ije. That was the first time I was watching a Nigerian film at the cinema. There was something about that moment that just made me fall in love, and the next two years after that was me trying to get into film school.
But first, I had to go to Unilag because that’s what my parents wanted. During my first year in Unilag, I was trying to get into film schools, but I really didn’t have any film knowledge, so I failed all the obvious application terms. In my second year, I learnt from my mistakes. I applied again and made sure I got admission into at least two before I went home and told my parents that I’d made the decision to go to film school.
It was a tough one for them, but the fact that I came home with admission already just made the conversation a lot easier. So, after three years in Reel Edge Film Academy, Johannesburg, I came back to Nigeria, and I did my apprenticeship under Niyi Akinmolayan for five years. I basically did everything.
And when the right time came and I made a short film that Niyi certainly believed showed that I was ready to become a film director, he gave me the chance to rewrite a script that he had in his locker called “The Elevator”, and when I re-wrote “The Elevator”, it became Elevator Baby. It was a pivotal film for the studio, but at the same time gave me a career.
From then on, it’s been success after success. Red Circle is the seventh film I’ve directed, but working with my friends in making Red Circle was so amazing.
Folu Storms: I’ve been a performer for as long as I can remember. It was just never something that I really thought of for the longest time as a career to pursue. A career, for me, because of how I was raised, was always going to be in an office. And I kind of fell in love with law, to be honest, kind of early, once I started studying it.
I have a very curious mind; I like learning things, and I’m good at expressing. And that’s what allowed me to enter the media space quite comfortably, because they are very transferable skills from my life as a lawyer.
But again, all through school, whether it was primary school, secondary school, my first degree, my master’s degree, I’ve been on stage. In fact, being a professional actor in Nigeria, this is the first period of my life that I’ve not been on stage for a long time, and I’m looking to rectify that this year.
It was something I deliberately did because I felt like screen work is a little bit different and I wanted to fine tune the nuance of performance on screen. And I feel like it’s coming together nicely, if I do say so myself. I think you will see some of that nuance especially in Red Circle.
It’s been something that’s been in me, that I’ve just always been in love with. When I don’t have a creative expression, I suffer emotionally, and I’m not my full and complete self. And I think that’s just something that God has put in me to express across multiple platforms. And it doesn’t matter the medium, whether it’s in a boardroom, or whether it’s on screen, or whether it’s through the radio; that’s just kind of my purpose.
Omowunmi Dada: I was that child that had always wanted to be in front of the television. But I had initially thought it was going to be just as a presenter, because I liked the idea of, when we were growing up, all these NTA news, the newscasters all well-dressed, speaking very good English, and the whole world literally looking at them, I liked that.
But as a child as well, I was a strong performer. I was in Igbo cultural troupe in primary school. I still remember this poem on patience, which is like three notebook pages, and they taught me in primary school, and I used to [perform] it to my brothers.
In secondary school, I was in a Yoruba cultural troupe, and I was the youngest student to dance Bata dance because Bata was only meant for senior students because it was hard. But I could do it somehow in JS2.
And the way I used to talk about things with so much passion, especially when it comes to fighting for someone, they would also call me “lawyer”. Growing up, every Sunday after church was like movie time where we’d have rented some VCD or a new VCD that we bought, and as a family, we’d watch. So, I loved actors, I loved presenters, and I also wanted to be a lawyer.
I wanted to study law, so I was in art class. I was also in the drama and literary debating club. I was also secretary general for the press club. I just explored all of these. But when it was time to go to University, I weighed it and I felt like acting was the thing I would do without any day feeling like I’m having to go to work. So, I studied Creative Arts. And right from when I was in school, I would go for auditions.
I started to do professional stage plays right from when I was in year 2. The first time I was in front of a camera was in 2008 as a TV host for the first reality show for kids, Kids Alone. But I was very audacious about acting to the point that we would have classes, even if we had a test, and I would go for an audition or I would go and shoot.
I was a scholar, the best graduating student in my class. I finished school, I worked in a media company for a year, and when I was done with that, I decided that I was going to pursue this. It was tough, it was hard, and I just bless God for where I am today.
Let’s talk about Red Circle. As the visionaries behind the film, what was your vision for Red Circle, and how did you bring that to life visually?
Nora Awolowo: My vision for Red Circle was shooting a film about a journalist, a young woman from a privileged home that had something to prove, and while trying to uncover a story, at every turn, there is a problem. How far can you go for your ambition? That was basically the highlight of the story.
Approaching the visuals, I worked with Akay Mason, and once we had the script, it was now figuring out location, also deciding [on] our production designer and gaffer, with the costume, too. They literally came to my house. We broke down each scene, scene by scene. What that meant was all of us already knew how we were approaching every scene before we got to set. That made the synergy and the shooting quite easy.
Akay Mason: There was a period where I fell sick, and Nora and our Assistant Director just came together and carried the shoot for three days without me. That was because of the breakdown that we did earlier. Even looking at the marketing strategy, you see that a lot of planning and thought was put into it.
When Nora had the story in her head and she gave it to us in the writers’ room, you could tell that she already had a picture of what this film looked like. Now, the question is, “Am I able to execute that picture creatively and give her what she wants?” Luckily for me, I had her right there behind the camera.
Nora Awolowo: What we were doing is that, we’d do Akay’s own. If I had another idea, I’d be like, “Akay, can we now do this other one?” So, in post, we’d now decide which one works. Even our editor and our assistant, everyone was giving us feedback. Everybody had a stake, and I think that was the best thing that we did. Everybody felt like their voice mattered.
Akay Mason: This film was made by a community. I’m just the lucky agent that just has his name as the director.
Folu, you star in the lead as Fikayo Holloway, a journalist investigating a powerful crime syndicate while also dealing with opposing family expectations and other relationships. As a character, who is Fikayo Holloway, and what drew you to her?
Folu Storms: As a character, Fikayo is somebody that is very bold. She is very determined, she is very opinionated, and she’s used to getting her way. She doesn’t suffer fools. The people that she loves, she loves fiercely; the people that she despises, you’re going to know about it, because she doesn’t feel like filtering herself in any way.
She is someone who was raised with privilege, and is somewhat aware of her privilege. She’s not a snob, she’s not elitist, at least not to her and not deliberately. She’s just somebody that’s used to getting her way in life, except, perhaps, when it comes to her family, and that’s where things are frustrating.
I found Fikayo interesting because of the way she was written. There are complexities in Fikayo’s behaviour. There is who she wants to be, and there is who her actions make her out to be. There is who people think that she is, and the version of herself she projects to the world. There are aspects to her that are revealed by the relationships she has, and I think that’s what makes her very human, and that’s what drew me to saying yes and to performing this character. Because as human beings, we are not all one thing. From the beginning, you can see Fikayo’s flaws, and I enjoyed that.
Initially, the first version of Fikayo that I saw, I wasn’t interested in playing. But then, after having a conversation, especially with people who were in the writing room, and being like, “Oh, I see. This is the extra layer that I needed.” Fikayo is deliciously human; she is deliciously flawed. And it makes her very entertaining to watch.
She becomes this vortex causing things to happen all around her and being such an active participant herself. It makes for a great popcorn movie. Even me, when I saw it, I was reacting like it was not me performing. It’s definitely a big deal for me because I’m hypercritical of myself, but watching her story come together on screen was deeply satisfying for me. I believe that she will cause conversation.
This is not your first rodeo playing an investigator-type character. We’ve seen you play a police inspector in Crime and Justice, Lagos, and you recently played a gossip journalist in Baby Farm. What is different about Fikayo?
Folu Storms: KC (Crime and Justice) is a very different character. KC is sure of herself because of all the things that she has done. When we meet KC, she is already on the table with experience; there’s very little fluff around KC.
When we look at our Baby Farm blogger, Joy is hungry. Joy comes at the world because she wants to be known. She has a nose for finding things, and what she’s finding is less about putting the truth out in the world and more about exposing truth, which is a very different approach. Joy, for me, was very singular-minded, and it made it very easy for me to create a character that was deeply irritating but just so interesting to watch.
But Fikayo doesn’t have the experience that any of these two have. She certainly doesn’t have the sort of hunger in the way Joy did because Joy did not come from privilege; Joy needs to make it. Fikayo is privileged but she has this idea of [being] on a white horse, kind of like a gallant knight, and she’s going to ride through and sort things out. And as a result, it makes good and bad things happen around her, because sometimes, you’re so privileged, you don’t understand the consequences of some of your actions.
But she’s bold, and in this life, fortune favours the bold. As long as you do things with courage, even if you’re making mistakes, you’ll come out on top. Fikayo is particularly interesting because for her, there are quite a few juxtapositions in her life that she, even, hasn’t made peace with, and I hope you see that come out on the screen.
Omowunmi, you play Venita, a singer who’s just trying to get by but finds herself in danger after witnessing a crime. As a character, who is Venita, and what drew you to her?
Omowunmi Dada: Venita is an audacious young woman who will do anything and almost everything to make it in life, very inspired and driven by the fact that she needs to take her family members out of poverty. But she will not do anything illegal to make that happen.
Venita has a good heart. Venita is that person who wants to see everyone win around her. She is true and fair with the people that she loves. There is no halfway sense of love or regard when it comes to Venita. She’s never scared to take risks. Venita is also easily trusting.
Her best friend, who is a solid rock for her and a sense of stability is Holloway, and she is very much supportive of her, and she feeds off energy from Fikayo. I think I’ve never played a character like Venita. She’s a ghetto babe but very educated. I love that the life of Venita is a huge catalyst in this story. Because she existed, Red Circle exists.
Can you tell us more about that sisterhood between Fikayo and Venita, and how you both approached it as actors to build the necessary chemistry?
Omowunmi Dada: It’s so funny how Red Circle is the first project Folu and I would do in close proximity. I didn’t know what to expect. I always come into the room with good energy because I love to just be in a place with good energy. Some actors will receive it, some actors will repel. But Folu really received it. And that helped us to start building the bond that helped our characters.
When we were on set, you would have thought that we were friends before then. Some of my favourite scenes were actually with Folu, and I would say that everyone, in real life, needs to experience this kind of friendship. Where you can bare it all without the fear of being judged, where you can be vulnerable, where you know that even if you’re in deep trouble, your friend will chastise you but definitely help you through the situation. Where you have someone that will stick their neck out for you even when you are stubbornly not wanting them to. And I feel like because we were that way, a lot of people also enjoyed what we shared on set.
Folu Storms: Hundred percent. Everything Omowunmi said. Omowunmi is a very generous actor; she is a generous human, and it comes through so clearly when you come across her. As a performer, a lot of what we’re doing is energy exchange, and energy exchange becomes challenging where people are throwing up walls between themselves. And we all do that in our day-to-day lives because you don’t know who you’re meeting outside, so you can come across very guarded.
That’s part of the skill and the pitfall of being an actor, that you are dropping your natural defences or the walls that we build up to protect ourselves so that you can more intimately connect with the person you are supposed to be intimate with, in whatever form. And not just intimacy between the two performers but also for the camera to see because you’re also being watched.
So to be with somebody who so generously does the same thing and allows you to also be safe. She is intentionally warm, and she is intentionally giving, and as a performer, you can sink into that. It’s like a trust fall. It was a very give-and-take relationship, and it was very loving, which I truly appreciate. It endeared her to me, and you see it, as a result, so clearly on the screen.
Did working on Red Circle change anything about the kind of films you want to make moving forward?
Folu Storms: It adjusted some things for me. I’ve always been someone who pays attention to the team, because filmmaking is teamwork. And while I’ve always been mindful of that, Red Circle has spoiled me for everybody outside.
It doesn’t matter if you’re number one on the call sheet, it doesn’t matter if you are the best boy on set, there was a level of respect and decorum and thoughtfulness in how every single person was treated, and that’s how it should be.
In the kinds of projects and the roles I’m taking on, it’s made me remember to interrogate, so even if initially I want to say no, which is what I did with Red Circle, it’s now like, “Okay, here are some concerns I have. Can you talk to me about this?” And that’s important for me to just take a moment and interrogate and see if there is any wiggle room at all. Because they wiggled. They adjusted.
Omowunmi Dada: You know when they say art is a collaborative effort, it’s truly a collaborative effort. Energy is very important. I’ve come to realise that who is driving the ship is very important. I would say that if a producer has toxic and negative energy, it trickles down. If another producer gets that same team but is leading that same team with so much honour, so much grace, so much passion and positivity, it trickles down.
Red Circle was one of my best experiences of being on set, if not number one. Not because it was very huge-scale or the budget was out of this world. I always tell people, you cannot pay a creative’s worth. So, even if I ask you “Give me ten kobo”, and you say, “Omowunmi, I want to give you twenty kobo’, even that twenty kobo you are paying me is not as important as how I am being treated on your set. And not just me, everyone in the room.
The truth is because we are creatives, we are like seeds. If you put us on fertile soils, we soar, we blossom. If you put us on rocky and thorny soils, it’s going to be a struggle to create. So, from the energy on set, we were able to give as much, we were able to give so much without feeling drained, and that was important.
Nora Awolowo: For me, it just reinforces my thoughts about the power of collaboration and the power of knowing that three heads will always be better than one. If it was just me, I think I would have run mad, but knowing that I had a backbone of very brilliant people was very important for me.
It also means that the level of detailing I have taken into Red Circle, I try not to falter on it on any other project, because of how much planning things in detail helped Red Circle. If you call me for a project, we need to prep for it properly. I want to be sure that the team that is carrying the project is grounded for the project; working with people that no matter what happens, you’re going to have the grit to see that project to the end. I think, for me, that’s very important going forward.
Akay Mason: Not all productions are equal. Projects like Red Circle, they are few and far between. If you really want to make a project like Red Circle, you have to make it. It doesn’t just fall into your lap. The standard of Red Circle, it’s really difficult for other productions to really hit it because not everybody has the budget or the patience or the passion, or the financial and moral will to see something like this though. A lot of the time, you get projects that just need to go out. That is the current reality of a director.
But artistically, yes, Red Circle is the standard I want. All things being equal, I’d love to do things double the standard. Because I still remember something that Nora said to me while we were shooting, that, till this day, it keeps me up. She said that Red Circle is the smallest film she’s ever going to make.
It’s glaring how much love and respect everyone has for the approach to the production and the energy on set, and it’s easy to tell from how involved both cast and crew are in promoting the film. How did you build that kind of positive energy on set?
Akay Mason: Everything starts from the top, and the top is obviously Nora. She set the tone and the energy, and we just had to follow up. When you see somebody approach this project with a sense of excellence, you cannot just be random, you also have to bring excellence. It felt like every young filmmaker on this project had something to prove, and the energy that Nora brought on board, knowing that this is bigger than any of us.
Normally, I’m used to being the top of the production, but for the first time, I think I’m grateful that I let someone’s energy take over, because this woman is a force of nature. It feels like a gift to be in this project. I’m grateful that she brought me onboard.
Nora Awolowo: I’d been reading books leading up to shooting. I think it was Diary of a CEO, and I remember reading an instance from that book that said your energy trickles down as a leader to everyone around you. That stuck in my brain that if you want people to do this, you need to lead first. That was the energy that we took to set. We were going to make the actors feel as comfortable as possible and excited to come back to set.
I try not to be the boss that comes on set and people are running away and just scattering. Me, I’m even the one throwing the jokes so everybody is comfortable and talking. That’s when even the Below-the-Line crew are very comfortable. Again, Nigeria is problematic. Everybody has a problem, so you would not also come to work and project those problems on people.
I’m happy that we were able to do that while still maintaining the excellence and brilliance we wanted out of the project. I approached Red Circle as “What would I want to see in another person’s film? Let me do it.” If I want to be on someone else’s project, this is how I feel like I would want to be treated, and that was the way I approached it.
Folu Storms: It’s why all the actors are so involved in the promotion for this film. Because the energy was good with everybody. And it’s not that it was perfect. It’s a production, things happen. But the energy was good. The intentionality from the conception of this film to the writing of it to the way that it was being directed, to the way that we started talking about promotion before that even came out.
The film’s marketing has been undeniably remarkable. We don’t get a lot of this kind of creative marketing in Nollywood. From the cast reveal to the trailer release, it has been fascinating to watch. Why was this kind of marketing important to you?
Nora Awolowo: I know myself too well. I know my limitations. I am very realistic. See, you need a level of shamelessness to get to certain levels in this industry. Knowing my limitations, what can I do? I’m an ideation person. How do I now leverage on my pros to get the best out of what we want for the film?
And that’s what we did. I have the leverage of knowing a network of people that are brilliant in different fields. There was our brand strategist, there’s the PR person, there’s Iremhen (Ilozhobie) doing our marketing execution. We’ll table down our ideas; if it works, we’ll do it.
My face was not the one that was going to sell the film. The most important thing is, how do you sell the name of the film? There’s a difference [in] the way we’ve led our marketing that it’s Red Circle that reigns in your brain. How do we sell the name of the film that the film sticks? How do we reach different markets without me, as a person, the director, the writer, being at the forefront of it, but the name of the film is what carries the film?
I’m proud of the marketing team. I think we’ve been able to do it. To be honest, our limitation was just what pushed us beyond boundaries. Knowing that we needed to leave our comfort zone was what sparked every idea and creativity that we’ve seen out of Red Circle today.
It’s interesting that even though the marketing has been very robust and intentional, both cast and crew are being very tight-lipped about details of the film. Why is this particularly important for Red Circle?
Akay Mason: Don’t you want to find out in the cinema? Don’t you want to pay your ticket and sit down in that dark room?
Nora Awolowo: It’s also [about] sparking the curiosity that we’ve had in our marketing and maintaining that communication style, even down to the kind of materials that we’re giving out to promote the film. Again, the film is so detailed and intentional that any little slack, people can pick out a spoiler. Please, sit in the cinema to discover what it’s about, and please, don’t spoil it for other people. Just tell them, “You need to go and see this film.” That’s our plan.
If you had to describe Red Circle in one word, what would it be—and why?
Omowunmi Dada: Blazing. There are so many things that are fiery. And, to a large extent, every character had a blazing moment. And it was called for. It was needed.
Folu Storms: Intriguing. Every person you meet has intrigue. The film itself is centred around intrigue. You think you know what’s happening, but you never really know what’s happening until the thing happens. There’s so many threads, and it’s all connected in this circle.
Akay Mason: Excellence. That was the motto; that was the energy. There are certain things that, as a director, you want to do, and you’re like “The EP is going to just do this because of budget.” But it actually feels good when the EP is also the cinematographer. I’m like, “Oh, we have to do this,” and she goes, “It’s going to cost money but it’s going to make the film better.” And she does it. It’s a gift to me; it’s a gift to the crew; it’s a gift to the audience, and I think it’s something that everybody needs to experience.
Nora Awolowo: Audacious. Because it was just audacity that got us here, and delulu. It’s just audacity to keep going that has brought us this far, from the film conceptualisation to where we are, and it is audacity that will take us to the end.
What conversations and emotions do you hope the film sparks when audiences watch it?
Folu Storms: I hope that people have conversations around their life choices, how they treat the ones closest to them, and the rights that you have over your life, and that your life really is about the choices that you make. I hope that they will have conversations about friendships, about love. I hope that it will both encourage some people to live in the moment and that it will also be a note of caution to think about the moments that you’re about to live. I think there will be debates about a few things.
Omowunmi Dada: Folu has said it all, being the genius that she is. I hope that people make better decisions for themselves after watching Red Circle. I hope that people will understand the value of humanity and people and friendship. I hope that people would understand that it’s better to do right than concentrating on good, because sometimes what feels good to you at this particular point in time is not necessarily the right thing to do. I hope that people will do right, make better choices, and love hard.
Akay Mason: Conversations about friendship, about the lengths you’re willing to go to find the truth, and about finding your own voice. If you look at our main character, Fikayo, she is mainly in the course of finding the truth—not just the truth about the events in the story, but the truth about herself as well. Everybody will be entertained when they watch this film. There is going to be a lot of debates about the twists.
Nora Awolowo: I think the conversation that the film will spark would be around love and romance. You know, in all of these thrillers [and] actions, the core of it is actually love and friendship. There’s going to be a lot of comparisons that I’m expecting to see. People should have fun; watch and just have a very good time.
*Red Circle starts screening in Nigerian cinemas on 6th June 2025 and in select cinemas in the UK on 20th June 2025.
Vivian Nneka Nwajiaku is a writer, film critic, TV lover, and occasional storyteller writing from Lagos. She has a master’s degree in law but spends most of her time reading about and discussing films and TV shows. She’s particularly concerned about what art has to say about society’s relationship with women. Connect with her on Twitter @Nneka_Viv