For years, Nollywood has dreamt of places where stories could be filmed without the constant headache of building sets from scratch, or having to engage street urchins who demand ‘ground rent’, a shadow tax that people and businesses bear in Nigeria. A few film villages have sprung up across Nigeria, including the much-talked-about KAP Film Village in Igbojaye, also in Oyo State.

Yet Africhatta Film Village, Ibrahim Chatta’s creation in Balogun Village, Oyo Town, feels different. It is not just a cluster of buildings for camera work; it is at once a cultural sanctuary, a backlot, and a retreat. This unusual blend makes it stand out, raising a simple but important question: Is it the first of its kind?

The answer depends on where you stand. Others came before, but Africhatta is perhaps the first privately built Yoruba heritage film village that also doubles as a full resort. Within its seventy-four acres, you can find mud-brick courtyards and market streets ready for period dramas, yet step inside a hut and you are greeted by cool, modern interiors that would satisfy the most demanding traveller.

That marriage of memory and comfort makes it feel less like a set and more like a living town that just happens to welcome both cameras and tourists.

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A place where stories can breathe

Arriving in Balogun Village, the landscape eases you in. Dust kicks up on narrow roads, goats shuffle aside, and then, suddenly, a skyline of thatch and clay rises into view. The gates open, and you are met with carved doorways, ochre-painted walls, and courtyards that seem to whisper with history.

Woodsmoke drifts lazily from kitchens. Horses stamp in their stables, their breath misting in the morning air. It feels old, familiar, and yet carefully staged, as though Yoruba history itself had paused for a photograph.

Africhatta stretches wide enough to be a town. There are alleys where drummers rehearse, wide compounds for family drama scenes, and mural-painted walls that tell their own stories. Chatta’s vision was not just to create sets, but to preserve cultural memory in physical form.

That is why the façades look ancient, but the interiors tell a different story. Inside, you find modern suites, tiled baths, and air conditioning. It is rustic outside, comfortable inside, the best of both worlds for film crews on tight schedules and visitors who want to stay inside a story without losing comfort. Nights here can slip easily into karaoke by the fire, or simply watching stars break across the village sky.

There is cinema and there is tourism

Word spread quickly in Nollywood. Producers searching for authentic Yoruba settings brought their crews here, saving time and cost. Soon enough, popular titles like Eleran, Lisabi, Iyalode, and Labake Olododo rolled their cameras within Africhatta’s walls. By day, actors moved through the market street in costume; by dusk, horses cut silhouettes against the sun, as if the past had returned in flesh and sound.

Tourists began arriving for the same reason as filmmakers: immersion. The murals are not just painted backdrops; they are lessons. The alleys invite photographers. The horses offer rides as well as cinematic drama.

Local children often trail behind them, laughing and chasing, giving the village an energy no script could capture. For Oyo State, Africhatta has become more than a location; it is now a tourist destination, proudly featured in official culture and tourism campaigns. And for Balogun itself, the effect is tangible: food vendors, artisans, and local guides now thrive from the steady stream of guests.

Beyond film, a vision for the future

The real surprise, though, is what happens when you step through one of those rustic doors. A hut that looks hand-moulded from clay opens up into a suite with white linens, polished tiles, and cool air humming gently in the background.

The stables are not just film props; they double as riding grounds. Pools and wellness spaces are being added, slowly expanding the resort side of the village. It is, in every sense, still growing.
Ask anyone in Balogun and they will tell you how the place has changed. Shopkeepers talk about new customers, artisans speak of steady work, and the children now have a playground that doubles as a film set.

For Chatta, the motivation was deeply personal. Watching ancestral homes disappear under aluminium roofs and modern tiles, he wanted to capture a world that was vanishing. Africhatta is his answer: a town you cannot erase, one built from memory, film, and the stubbornness of vision.

The beauty of the village is not only that it preserves the past, but that it gestures toward the future. It proves that Nollywood can have its own cinematic backlots, that cultural tourism can thrive alongside film production, and that a private dream can ripple into a community’s reality.

Visitors leave with photographs and stories, filmmakers leave with footage and sets, but everyone leaves with the sense that they have stepped into something rare. Africhatta is not just a film retreat; it is a living village of stories, where history, cinema, and hospitality collide in a way you cannot easily forget.

So, if you’re visiting Nigeria or looking for where to escape to from the hustle and bustle of life, try Africhatta and you will be happy you did.

Cynthia Nwanonyiri