Hope Is a Word, the award-winning documentary about poetry and resistance in the oil-polluted Niger Delta, will screen at the Quramo Festival of Words 2026 on Thursday, 1 October, at 5 pm, in the Grand Ballroom of Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos.
Quramo is one of Nigeria’s leading literary festivals, bringing together writers, poets and readers every year. For a film about the power of words, it’s a fitting home.
A new generation takes up the pen
For decades, oil spills and gas flaring have poisoned the Niger Delta’s land and water, and brought violence and division to its communities. Poet and activist Nnimmo Bassey has spent his life fighting back. Now, as he approaches his 70th birthday, he’s asking a difficult question: who will carry on the struggle?
Inspired by his mentor, the Ogoni writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, Bassey invites a group of young people to write with him. In the safe space of his poetry workshops, they begin to tell their own stories.
The film follows Barinedum, a writer from Ogoni, one of the areas hardest hit by oil pollution; Odudu, a strong-minded songwriter searching for reasons to stay and fight; and Ukpono, Bassey’s youngest son, who finds his voice through rap. Their poems and songs become a way to heal, to speak up, and to imagine a different future for the Delta.
The film’s spirit is captured in one of Bassey’s most famous lines, which recurs throughout: “We thought it was oil, but it was blood.”
A strong festival run
Hope Is a Word had its world premiere in the International First Feature Competition at Sheffield DocFest 2026. It received a Special Mention at the Durban International Film Festival and won the Audience Award at the Montrose LandxSea Film Festival. It also opened the Checkpoints human rights programme at the Bergen International Film Festival and screened at DOK Leipzig and Visioni dal Mondo.
Before its release, the project won the ESoDoc Award for Impact at Movies that Matter 2025.
Critics have praised the film’s emotional power. The Nollywood Reporter wrote that its central idea is that hope is not simply something to feel, but something to practise. Cinerama praised it for letting the voices of those affected take centre stage, with grit and lyricism.
Meet the filmmakers
Nnimmo Bassey, Executive Producer Femi Odugbemi, and Impact Producer and Cinematographer Allen Onyige will attend the Lagos screening and take part in a conversation with the audience afterwards.
Directed by Norwegian-Italian filmmaker Maria Galliani Dyrvik, Hope Is a Word is her first documentary feature. She met Bassey in 2016 in Bergen, Norway, where she watched him bring an entire room to its feet chanting his poem. That moment led to the question at the heart of the film: can poetry help people find their voice and use it to shake up the world?
Screening details
Event: Quramo Festival of Words 2026
Date: Thursday, 1 October 2026
Time: 5 pm
Venue: Grand Ballroom, Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos
About the film
Hope Is a Word (2026, 82 min, Norway/Nigeria/Italy)
Director: Maria Galliani Dyrvik
Producer and Director of Photography: Anita Vedå for Smau Media
Executive Producer: Femi Odugbemi (Zuri24 Media)
Co-producer: Chiara Andrich (Ginko Film)
Impact Producer and Cinematographer: Allen Onyige
Editor: Federico Neri
Languages: English, Pidgin, Gokana and Tai, with English subtitles
Sales: Stephan Riguet, AndanaFilms
