A Nollywood premiere in the West End
On 29 November 2026, a Nollywood film will premiere at ODEON Luxe Leicester Square in London. The Four: No One Fights Alone, written, directed and produced by Funke Akindele through her company Funke Akindele Network, and distributed by FilmOne Entertainment, will be the first Nollywood title to premiere at the venue. The film then opens in cinemas on 11 December 2026. It tells the story of four women who fight for the future of a young man they love, and it stars Akindele alongside Bisola Aiyeola, Chioma Akpotha, Waje, Richard Mofe-Damijo, Timini Egbuson and Lateef Adedimeji, among others.
For UK audiences, this is a sign of how far African screen storytelling has travelled. Akindele’s previous film, Behind the Scenes, released in 2025, made more than 2 billion naira, roughly 1.6 million dollars, and was streamed on Netflix, reaching viewers far beyond Nigeria. Her films have topped the Nigerian box office for three consecutive years, and A Tribe Called Judah, from 2023, was the first Nollywood film to make 1 billion naira at the box office. The London premiere, announced with promotional support from Facebook, is part of a deliberate strategy to bring Nigerian cinema to international audiences.
But a premiere is the visible end of a long chain of business decisions. The financing, the rights, the distribution deals, the music licensing and the brand partnerships all happen long before the red carpet. That chain is exactly what CANEX WKND 2026, opening in Lagos on 5 November, is built to strengthen. For UK readers who enjoy African film, music and fashion, CANEX explains how the work you love gets made, paid for and protected.
What CANEX is
CANEX WKND 2026 runs from Thursday 5 November to Sunday 8 November 2026 at the Wole Soyinka Centre for Culture and Creative Arts, inside the National Theatre complex in Iganmu, Lagos. It is the flagship weekend of the Creative Africa Nexus, run by the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), in partnership with the Federal Government of Nigeria, the African Union Commission and the African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat. This is the first time Nigeria has hosted it. The theme is “One People, United in Culture, Creating for the World: From FESTAC ’77 to CANEX ’27”, recalling the 1977 Lagos festival that gathered Black creatives from around the world.
The programme covers film, music, fashion, literature, visual arts, gastronomy and sport. There are exhibitions, a fashion show and awards night, film screenings, a concert, a food competition and a legends football match. At its centre is a business programme: a finance summit, a deal room, intellectual property sessions, masterclasses and networking for people who make their living from creative work.
For a UK reader, the simplest way to understand CANEX is as a trade fair for culture. Just as a book fair is where publishers buy and sell the rights to books, CANEX is where filmmakers, musicians, designers and investors meet to do deals, learn the rules of the business, and connect African creative work with buyers and audiences around the world, including in Britain.
The business behind the premiere
The Thursday programme in Lagos shows what the business side looks like in practice. The Creative Economy Finance Summit runs from 10am to 3pm West Africa Time, presented by Afreximbank with the Creative Economy Practice at Co-Creation Hub. It is invitation only, and it is followed by a session on financing African intellectual property. A separate intellectual property summit covers the rights through which creators control the use and commercial distribution of their work.
Its sessions map directly onto the journey of a film like The Four. The music roundtable addresses royalties and revenue, which covers how the songs in a film are paid for and how their writers earn. The film and television session covers production rights, distribution and cross-border licensing, which is the legal framework that allows a Nigerian film to premiere in London and then open in cinemas worldwide. The fashion discussion covers design protection, counterfeiting and brand rights, which matters when a film’s costumes and styling inspire fashion far beyond the screen. Another roundtable covers brand deals, content made with artificial intelligence, and digital monetisation, all of which shape how a modern film release earns money beyond ticket sales.
The CANEX Deal Room, running from 5 to 7 November, lets creative projects pitch directly to financiers and investors. It is access controlled, but its purpose is plain: creative businesses need capital, and capital needs to see clear ownership, clear earnings and clear plans.
The CANEX Music Business Lab and Songwriting Camp, run with the Creative Industries Initiative for Africa, follows a song from writing to earning. Its masterclasses cover songwriting credits, split sheets, registering work, choosing a distributor, royalties, publishing, sync licensing and brand deals. Sync licensing, the use of a song in a film, advert or series, is one of the quiet ways music earns, and it is directly relevant to a film soundtrack. The original song “My Sunshine”, by Waje and Shoday, was released from the soundtrack of The Four ahead of the film’s December release, a reminder that a film’s music is a business in its own right.
Why this matters to UK audiences and UK creatives
African creative work is no longer a niche interest in Britain. Afrobeats fills UK charts and festivals. Nollywood films reach UK audiences through cinemas and streaming. African fashion appears on London runways and high streets. The UK premiere of The Four at Leicester Square is part of that story, and it raises practical questions for British readers too.
For audiences, CANEX is a guide to what to watch next. The filmmakers, musicians and designers meeting in Lagos this week are the people whose work will reach UK screens, speakers and shops in the coming years. Akindele’s fireside chat at CANEX, scheduled for Friday 6 November in Live Theatre 1 from 2pm to 2.45pm, and the sessions with American actress Uzo Aduba and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, show the range of the event, from commercial filmmaking to literature.
For UK creatives, especially those from African and Caribbean backgrounds, the lessons are practical. The rights system is international. A song registered properly in one country can earn in another. A film licensed properly can travel. A design protected properly can be sold across borders.
There is also a lesson about structure. The Fidelity Bank workshop on Saturday 7 November, “Fueling Visions, Creating Impact”, brings professionals from banking, filmmaking, photography, fashion, content creation and music together to discuss turning creative talent into commercially viable businesses. The message applies in London as much as in Lagos: talent opens doors, but records, rights, pricing and planning keep a creative business alive.
What to look out for
If you are in London, the date to note is 29 November, when The Four premieres at ODEON Luxe Leicester Square, ahead of its cinema release on 11 December. If you follow African film, music or fashion, the reports from CANEX this week are worth reading as a preview of what comes next: which projects found finance, and which artists used the weekend to build partnerships that carry their work further.
