Inside Nigeria state governed by Sharia law - where women are fighting film censorship

To coincide with the broadcast of the first Unreported World series of 2026, Anja Popp writes about her experience filming in Nigeria. "You'll have to go in convoy with four soldiers armed with machine guns in this part," my editor, Andy, told me, pointing at a map. "But apart from that it's pretty straightforward." Subscribe We were preparing for our trip to Northern Nigeria, an area increasingly known outside the country for kidnapping by Boko Haram and bandits. And in the weeks before we left, US President Trump put it to the top of the headlines by bombing ISIS targets in the region. Kannywood, and a male-dominated film industry But our assignment was somewhat less testosterone-fuelled. We were meeting the colourful and inspiring Hausa women of Kano, who were fighting against a male-dominated film industry to cement their star in Kannywood, Northern Nigeria's answer to Hollywood. It's not just the usual patriarchy they have to fight. They also have to get all their films past the strict state censorship board who hold women to a much higher standard than men, in this Sharia law-governed part of the country. Before we went I was expecting to encounter women silenced by society's expectations of them. [ ](https://channel4news.substack.com/p/unreported-world-2025-from-slay-queens) [ Unreported World 2025: From 'slay queens' to Tenerife's squatting crisis ](https://channel4news.substack.com/p/unreported-world-2025-from-slay-queens) Channel 4 News · December 29, 2025 [ Read full story ](https://channel4news.substack.com/p/unreported-world-2025-from-slay-queens) But instead we found the funniest, feistiest, inspirational ladies, refusing to allow the judgement of others dictate their path in life, whatever the mental and societal cost. But scratch the surface just a little and you uncover deep frustrations and a sense of injustice about how much harder it is for them to achieve success. All the women we met told us they are regularly called a prostitute for 'selling' their body, i.e. being paid to appear on-screen. They also spoke of being dismissed when trying to pursue roles beyond acting, where their beauty was not an asset, so therefore their worth no longer held any value. Share Channel 4 News Countering frustrations Mansurah Isah, pictured below, has tried to counter the frustrations bestowed on women in Northern Nigeria by self-funding her own films. It means she's been able to break into producing, something many women told us had been a near-impossible feat in the wider industry. It also means she can tell stories relevant to women, instead of the usual love stories that dominate Kannywood. @unreportedworldWelcome to Kannywood in northern Nigeria, home to a HUGE film industry. But actresses and filmmakers here face intense censorship and moral scrutiny. WATCH: 'Censored Film Queens of Nigeria' this Friday at 7:30pm on Channel 4. #Kannywood #Nigeria #Hausa #Documentary #UnreportedWorld Tiktok failed to load. Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser We went with her to the state censorship board to get her latest film reviewed and she was visibly nervous about a particular birth scene. I couldn't see what the issue was; as the actress in the scene, she was fully clothed and it was, by my measure at least, a pretty sanitised version of birth. But it soon became clear Mansurah's fears weren't unfounded. They told her the scene had to go. 'We cannot fight it' These decisions - the head of the censorship board told me - were just aligning with cultural views of people in Northern Nigeria, admitting that he had in the past 'made an example' of women who don't stick to the rules, by banning them from the industry. He went on to explain that the censorship board's primary role was to protect the image and traditions of Hausa culture and to discourage discussions that negatively impact their society. After the censorship board's decision, Mansurah broke down, telling me: "The men, they can fight it. We women, we cannot fight it, because we have to protect ourselves at the same time." And these stories of unfairness were peppered throughout our trip - of women who had been abandoned by their families through shame or banned from the industry by censors, accounts of being chased from their home by people angry about their films, and of attempts to shame the women out of work. But there are also tales of empowerment, of joy and of hope. Unreported World: 2026 Substack series As Unreported World returns to screens, Channel 4 News is publishing an exclusive series of newsletters on Substack; each one dedicated to a single episode of the renowned foreign affairs programme. Written by the award-winning journalists who were there, these individual newsletters go beyond the broadcast, offering readers a rare, personal look back at what it really felt like to report from some of the world's most extraordinary places, on the most extraordinary stories. Subscribe Share Channel 4 News Leave a comment Source: https://channel4news.substack.com/p/inside-nigeria-state-governed-by