2026 (USA, Nigeria) 125 minutes
Directed by: Arie Esiri and Chuko Esiri
In this tender, quietly virtuosic adaptation of Mrs. Dalloway, twin filmmakers Arie and Chuko Esiri transport Virginia Woolf’s great 1925 novel to contemporary Nigeria, where the affluent Clarissa (Oscar nominee Sophie Okonedo), is getting her opulent home ready for an elaborate party. These preparations send Clarissa into reverie over her past and the unresolved loves of her youth, while, as in Woolf’s book, the film expands to follow the parallel story of Septimus (Fortune Nwafor), a soldier suffering from PTSD, in this case after his experiences fighting the country’s Boko Haram jihadist insurgency. The directors demonstrate their wizardry for intricate, overlapping narratives, retaining the spiritual essence of Woolf’s themes—memory and time, modernity and progress, class and privilege—while placing them in an enriching, new cultural context.
2026 Cannes Film Festival – Premiere – Nominated – Audience Award
2026 Chicago International Film Festival – Nominated – Best Feature Film
2026 Stockholm Film Festival – Nominated – Best Feature Film
Northstar Village Cinemas – December 5 – 5:00pm