Logline & Synopsis

LOGLINE: Everyone tells a young Lagos widow to be strong. No one expects her to take over her late husband’s danfo. With rent due and three children to feed, she gets behind the wheel anyway.

Synopsis

Simisọ́lá follows Simi, a young Lagos widow learning how to live inside a life that has suddenly changed. Her husband is gone, but the responsibilities he carried are not, and neither are the traces of him left behind: his clothes, his routines, and the yellow danfo bus that once supported their family.

When Simi decides to drive the bus herself, her presence at the bus park is met with disbelief. Driving a danfo is considered men’s work, and even her own family would rather she sell the bus and return to a more acceptable life. But Simi refuses to give it up. With help from an unlikely ally, she learns how to work within a world that has little room for her, enduring suspicion, humiliation and the everyday chaos of Lagos while slowly finding her footing behind the wheel.

Yet beneath her determination, grief remains. As Simi fights to build a life without her husband, she must also confront the part of herself still holding on to him. Simisọ́lá is an intimate story about grief, survival and the quiet courage it takes to keep moving when the life you knew has disappeared.

Filmmaker Biography — Nicole Asinugo

Nicole Asinugo is an award-winning Nigerian screenwriter and director whose work moves between film and large-scale cultural storytelling. She began her screen career with Living in Bondage: Breaking Free, which won Best Screenplay at the 2020 Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards (AMVCA), followed by Rattlesnake: The Ahanna Story. Both films are available globally on Netflix.

In 2026, Nicole makes her directorial debut with Simisọ́lá, reflecting her interest in intimate, character-led stories about people at moments of change. That interest in people and perspective runs through the rest of her work: she has written and consulted on six Global Citizen festivals across Accra, Paris and New York, helped shape national narratives for Expo 2020 Dubai and Ethiopia’s pavilion at COP28, and worked as a show writer and producer on 1001 Seasons of Elie Saab.

Across very different formats and audiences, she is interested in finding the human way into a story. She is also the founder of Write Good Stories, a Lagos-based narrative company working across commissioned storytelling, story and talent development, and original production, with Simisọ́lá marking its first film production.

Film Specifications

• Title: Simisọ́lá
• Writer & Director: Nicole Asinugo
• Language: Yoruba
• Genre: Drama / Character-Led Short
• Setting: Lagos, Nigeria
• Production Company: Write Good Stories
• Release Year: 2026