Black Market will premiere in Lagos with organisers targeting 50,000 attendees.
The screening aims to break the current record of 43,624 people at a single film screening.
Lateef Adedimeji, Linda Ejiofor-Suleiman and other Nollywood stars headline the crime thriller.
Black Market, a new Nollywood crime thriller starring Lateef Adedimeji and Linda Ejiofor-Suleiman, will premiere on September 26 at Tafawa Balewa Square, Lagos, in an event that will double as an attempt to break an 11-year-old world record.
The film follows a group of people whose lives become entangled through a cross-border smuggling operation, exploring survival, loyalty and the consequences of operating outside the law. Organisers are aiming to gather 50,000 people for the single screening, an official Guinness World Records attempt for the largest attendance at a film screening in one location.
The current record stands at 43,624, set in October 2015 when Iglesia Ni Cristo gathered that number at the Philippine Arena in the Philippines for the premiere of Felix Manalo. If successful, Black Market’s premiere would be the first time the record has been broken since it was set nearly 11 years ago.
Produced by Rixel Studios in partnership with FilmOne Entertainment and Signet Ring Studios, the premiere brings together an ensemble cast including Itele D Icon, Scarlet Gomez, Omowunmi Dada and Uzor Arukwe, alongside a supporting lineup of emerging talents.
The film was directed by Fatimah Binta Gimsay, who also co-wrote the script alongside Abdul Tijani-Ahmed. Speaking on the project, Gimsay described the experience of seeing the film come together after multiple versions of the script.
”It is so surreal when you go from what is in your head and see it come to life. We have been attached to different versions of the script, but the final version felt different. We finally felt like we merged all our tones together,” she said.
Gimsay is the founder of Hello July Films and has written for several Nigerian primetime television titles, including Africa Magic’s Battleground and Riona, as well as season five of MTV Shuga Naija. Black Market marks her second feature film as writer and director, following Lowkey Adults, which came out in 2025.
The premiere event has drawn a lineup of corporate partners, including MTN, Puma, Swoop, Oraimo and Shuttlers, alongside the Lagos State Ministry of Culture, reflecting the scale of the logistics required to pull off a screening of that size.
If the attempt succeeds, it would mark one of the biggest single-day cultural events in Nigerian entertainment history, and a rare instance of a Nollywood production entering the Guinness World Records books outright.
Lateef Adedimeji, Linda Ejiofor to star in Black Market as Lagos premiere attempts world record
