Cinema does not always begin on a grand set or with a room full of actors. Sometimes, it starts with a handful of handmade figures, a miniature world and a filmmaker patient enough to bring them to life one frame at a time.

For Nigerian filmmaker, animator and production designer Adeoye Adetunji, this is more than a creative experiment. It is a way of making cinema.

Through stop-motion animation, Adetunji is building miniature worlds that carry human emotions, cultural identity and stories rooted in African experiences. His career offers an important lesson for Nigeria’s creative industry: sometimes, the difference between an idea that remains in the imagination and one that reaches an audience is the willingness to learn the craft and work with what is available.

From matchsticks to filmmaking

Adetunji’s interest in creating worlds began long before he became an established filmmaker. In a September 2026 interview with GhMovieFreak, he recalled making toy ninjas from matchsticks as a child, wrapping them in colourful rubber strips and building houses from matchboxes and cartons. He gave his characters names, imagined rival clans and made sound effects with his mouth as their battles unfolded.

What might have seemed like ordinary childhood play was an early form of world-building: designing characters, creating environments and imagining how a story would move from one scene to another.

His formal career developed across several creative disciplines. Although he initially wanted to study engineering, he eventually studied Mathematics at the University of Ilorin. He also developed his knowledge of filmmaking by reading about cinematography, lighting and art direction, while gaining practical experience designing sets, props and costumes.

Working in the Nigerian film industry, he became known for his work as an art director, including on productions such as Introducing the Kuju’s. He also worked on music videos, with TheNET reporting in 2023 that he had worked on more than 100 of them. His experience across art direction, visual design and filmmaking would later become central to his approach to animation.

The turning point came during the COVID-19 lockdown. With conventional film production restricted, Adetunji began exploring how he could make a film indoors. His first attempt at a stop-motion project, centred on Lagos traffic, did not work out as planned. Rather than abandon the medium, he continued learning and eventually created Pa Aromire, the film that brought his stop-motion work wider recognition.

What makes stop-motion different?

Unlike computer-generated animation, where characters and environments can be created digitally, stop-motion relies on physical objects that are moved in small increments and photographed frame by frame. When the images are played in sequence, the objects appear to move.

That process sounds simple until the amount of work becomes clear. A character cannot casually turn its head or walk across a room. The animator must physically adjust its position, capture an image, make another small adjustment and repeat the process, often thousands of times.

For Adetunji, this labour-intensive technique brings together skills he has developed throughout his career: drawing, sculpting, production design, cinematography, lighting, camera movement and sound design.

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His approach also challenges a familiar assumption about filmmaking in Nigeria: that meaningful visual effects require substantial financial backing. During the production of Pa Aromire, he worked with a miniature set built on his dining table and used a mobile phone to shoot the film. The project took months of painstaking work, demonstrating how resourcefulness and technical understanding can help a filmmaker work around limited equipment and funding.

From Pa Aromire to The Travails of Àjàdí

Pa Aromire: The breakthrough

In May 2023, Adetunji won the Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Award (AMVCA) for Best Short Film with Pa Aromire. The achievement brought greater attention to stop-motion animation in Nigeria and marked a major milestone for the technique within the country’s mainstream film industry.

The Travails of Àjàdí: A personal story

His later film, The Travails of Àjàdí, follows a struggling fisherman who survives a violent storm and encounters a mysterious divine presence. The Yoruba-language film explores hardship, suffering and the possibility of discovering meaning in difficult experiences.

At the 2025 Lagos International Festival of Animation (LIFANIMA), it won Best Stop Motion Animation. It was also selected for the Perspectives programme at the 2026 Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France.

The decision to tell Àjàdí’s story in Yoruba is significant. Language does more than help an audience understand dialogue; it carries the rhythm, expressions and cultural references through which people experience a story. In an interview published in September 2026, Adetunji explained that he replaced the film’s original English recordings and travelled from Lagos to Ilorin to find the Yoruba voices and delivery he wanted.

A new chapter with The Lion of Gwoza

Adetunji’s recent work also shows that stop-motion can tackle subjects beyond folklore and personal reflection.

His four-minute short film The Lion of Gwoza honours Abu Ali, a Nigerian soldier remembered for his courage and sacrifice in the fight against insurgency. The film uses handcrafted visuals to explore duty, the human cost of conflict and the legacy of a soldier who became a symbol of resilience. It was selected for the shorts programme of the 2026 Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF).

In October 2026, the film won both the Stop Motion Animation category at LIFANIMA and the overall National Orientation Agency (NOA) Animation Award, earning the ₦10 million first prize. The NOA competition challenged animators to explore Nigerian identity, citizenship and shared national values through animation.

What his journey means for Nigerian creatives

Adetunji’s career offers a practical lesson in creative development. His work did not emerge from mastering one skill in isolation. It grew from years of learning across different disciplines and finding a way to bring them together.

His experience also highlights the potential of animation as a space for Nigerian creators to develop original intellectual property. Instead of relying exclusively on live-action productions, filmmakers can use animation to explore stories that might be difficult, expensive or impossible to stage conventionally.

There are still real challenges, including funding, equipment, production time and the need for a stronger industry ecosystem. One filmmaker’s achievements do not mean these barriers have disappeared. However, Adetunji’s growing recognition shows that Nigerian stop-motion can compete for attention on major festival platforms while telling stories grounded in local experiences.

For aspiring animators, his journey offers encouragement to learn the technical side of the craft, experiment with available tools and develop stories worth telling. For the wider industry, it is a reminder that animation deserves serious investment, distribution and opportunities for sustainable growth.

Hear the story from Adeoye Adetunji himself

Beyond the awards and finished films, there is a creative process that deserves attention: the thinking, experimentation and persistence required to bring a story to life, frame by frame.

In an interview available on Meiza’s YouTube channel, Adeoye Adetunji shares his perspective on his creative journey and his work in filmmaking. The conversation offers readers an opportunity to hear directly from the filmmaker behind these miniature worlds and gain a closer understanding of the person, ideas and experiences shaping his craft.

Building a different kind of cinema

Adeoye Adetunji is doing more than bringing handmade characters to life. He is expanding the possibilities of Nigerian cinema, showing that stories rooted in local languages, histories and experiences can find new expression through an unconventional filmmaking technique.

His journey from matchstick characters to internationally recognised animation offers a reminder that innovation does not always begin with expensive equipment. Sometimes, it begins with a simple idea, the patience to learn and the determination to keep creating.

One carefully constructed frame at a time, Adetunji is helping shape a different future for Nigerian animation.

Oluwabusolami Odunsi