Rixel Studios, the producers of the 2025 movie, Red Circle, is chasing history again. The production company led by young filmmaker Nora Awolowo has announced its second feature film, Black Market, and announced plans to premiere it in front of 50,000 people at Lagos’s Tafawa Balewa Square on September 26, 2026, in an attempt to set a new Guinness World Record for the largest film screening at a single location.
If Nora Awolowo and her team succeed with the turnout, the event would eclipse the existing record of 43,000 attendees. Rixel is staging the record bid in partnership with FilmOne Studios, Signet Ring Studios and Switch Visuals Production, framing the premiere as far more than a conventional first screening.
Black Market is only the studio’s second feature, following its 2025 debut, the crime thriller Red Circle. The new film features Lateef Adedimeji and Linda Ejiofor-Suleiman, fronting a sprawling ensemble that also features Itele D Icon, Omowunmi Dada, Teniola Aladese, Susan Pwajok, Uzor Arukwe, Scarlet Gomez, Folagade Banks, Tomiwa Tegbe and others. Shot in Abeokuta, Ogun State, it was written by Abdul Tijani-Ahmed and Fatimah Gimsay, with Gimsay also directing.
Nora Awolowo has said the project reflects the appetite for experimentation that has defined Rixel’s short life, adding that the team drew lessons from its first film and wants to keep finding ways to innovate. “We are excited to go on this journey as a team and we have taken a lot of lessons from our previous film. As young filmmakers, one of our aims is to continue to creatively look for ways to innovate,” she said.
This Guinness World Record ambition is in line with Nora Awolowo’s trajectory. She founded Rixel Studios at just 19, having taught herself photography before moving into cinematography and documentary work.
An Accounting graduate, she broke through with the 2019 documentary Life at the Bay, and later became the first Nigerian woman nominated for Best Cinematography at the AMVCAs for her camerawork on the epic Lisabi: The Uprising. Along the way, Rixel built commercial muscle through commissioned work for brands including FIFA, Canon, Guinness and Showmax.
It was Red Circle, though, that turned her into a headline name. The Lagos-set thriller, directed by Akay Mason and starring Folu Storms, opened in cinemas in June 2025, earning ₦33.8 million on its first weekend and crossing the ₦100 million mark within three weeks. The run made Nora Awolowo, then 26, the youngest Nollywood producer to reach that box-office milestone, and the film went on to an international screening tour across the UK.
Red Circle’s momentum and Awolowo’s persistent advocacy for better film infrastructure, from sound stages to studio spaces, sets the stage for the Black Market gamble. A successful record attempt would hand Rixel Studios one of the most audacious marketing moments Nollywood has attempted by converting a movie premiere into a mass cultural event.
