Faraday Okoro, Biyi Bandele’s ‘Nigerian Prince’ wins $1m grant at Tribeca Film Festival

A proposed new movie on Nigerian email scammers, Nigerian Prince, written and directed by Faraday Okoro and produced by Biyi Bandele and Oscar Hernandez-Topete, has won a $1million AT&T grant at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.

Nigerian Prince was announced winner on Thursday, April 19 at the film fiesta after a hard-fought pitching session tagged ‘AT&T Presents: Untold Stories’ featuring scripts from four other talented filmmakers.

The winning movie script swayed a Greenlight committee led by Fiona Carter, AT&T Chief Brand Officer, after listening to a pitch on its story idea, budget and film script. Also listed in the committee were Hollywood actors Jeffrey Wright and Anthony Mackie, Josh Deutsch (Chairman and CEO, Downtown Records), Lee Daniels (Film Producer), Len Amato (President, HBO Films) and Frida Torresblanco (Film Producer).

The session was the first edition of the AT&T and Tribeca new film initiative.

AT&T will provide funding of up to $1 million for Faraday Okoro and Biyi Bandele to create his film, and Tribeca will provide mentorship from seasoned industry professionals. In addition, AT&T plans to distribute the winning film across several of its video platforms, including DIRECTV NOW, AT&T’s streaming over-the-top service.

Nigerian Prince is based on the notorious email scams that have proved a plague to both local and international law authorities. The plot centres around a stubborn Nigerian-America teenager who is sent to Nigeria against his will. Things take an unexpected turn when the protagonist joins forces with an internet scammer, in order to return to the United States.