Biography
Following undergraduate and Masters degrees in business (University of Lagos, Imperial College London), Desmond Ovbiagele worked for over a decade in investment banking at Citigroup and other financial institutions before exiting to pursue a passion for movie production.
He wrote, produced and co-directed his debut feature film, Render to Caesar, which was selected in 2015 to screen in official competition at FESPACO (Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso), Africa’s largest film festival, as well as at the Pan African Film Festival (PAFF) in Los Angeles, America’s largest and most prestigious black film festival. It also received awards for Best Supporting Actor and Best Screenplay at the Nollywood Movies Awards and Best of Nollywood (BON) Awards respectively, as well as the award for Best International Feature Film at the Nile Diaspora International Film Festival in Kampala, Uganda.
The Milkmaid, which he also wrote, produced and directed, is his second feature film, receiving eight nominations at the Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) in December 2020, and winning 5 awards, including for Best Film and Best Supporting Actress.
Also in December 2020, The Nigerian Official Selection Committee announced The Milkmaid as the country's official selection for the 93rd Academy Awards in the category of Best International Feature Film, Nigeria’s first ever successful submission to the Oscars.
In July 2021, The Milkmaid held its European premiere at the African Odyssey Series of the British Film Institute (BFI) Southbank in London.
At the 2021 Pan African Film Festival, Los Angeles, The Milkmaid received the Programmers’ Award for Best Narrative Feature. The film has also screened in several other film festivals across North America, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
The Milkmaid received 14 nominations at the 2021 Best of Nollywood (BON) Awards, winning 6 awards, including for Best Director and Best Film.
In February 2022, the Pan African Film Festival, in celebration of its 30th anniversary, selected The Milkmaid amongst 12 other titles as part of its retrospective ‘Best of PAFF’ narrative feature films over the past three decades.
Desmond Ovbiagele is the co-founder of DANONO MEDIA – a film production company based in West Africa and the United States.
