I Live in V.I.

I Live in V. I. is a Nigerian feature film in development from director Ugochukwu Azuya and producer Olubunmi Ogunsola at Ensemble. The social satire explores urban alienation, class division, and gentrification in Lagos through the story of Florence, who leaves Akwa Ibom for work in the city. Faced with an exhausting commute, grief, and insecure housing, she begins squatting in an abandoned government construction site near affluent Victoria Island while inventing a fiction that she lives in V. I. —a neighborhood strictly for the wealthy. The project was showcased at the 2026 Locarno Open Doors and won the Tabakalera–San Sebastian Film Festival Residency Award, which provides development support and industry access. Set against the backdrop of Victoria Island and exploring what Azuya describes as Lagos's "materialistically driven, very classist society," the film examines the lost hope of the Nigerian dream through a surreal, möbius-strip narrative structure.