Ireke: Rise of the Maroons set for July release

Nigerian born filmmaker Gbolahan Peter Macjob’s ‘Ireke: Rise of the maroons’ is set for July release after premiering at the 2025 Cannes film festival.

The new Yorùbá movie premiered at the Cannes Film Festival as the first Nigerian local language movie to achieve such a feat.

Come July 25, the movie will have its worldwide release in over 100 cinemas combined across the UK, Nigeria, Ghana, Benin, and Austria – another first for any Nigerian movie.

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In the same vein, the film has made another feat as the first Nigerian movie ever to secure an exclusive distribution deal with Europe’s largest Cinema chain – the Odeon.

‘Ireke: Rise of the Maroons’ tells the story of the slave rebellion of the 18th century in the Caribbean plantations which led to the creation of the Maroons and how their resistance led to a truce and ultimately the end of slavery in the region.

After its release at Cannes, the film has opened up conversations about the need to tell stories about shared history from the global south which resonate with the global north.

With the exponential growth of the Nigerian film industry in the last decade and its continuing appeal to a wider audience, this local language film is set to capture hearts of the Black and ethnic minority communities in the UK this summer.

This is the first time anything like this has happened in Sub Saharan Africa and the fact it’s a debut for the writer/director.

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