Daughters of Chibok

Daughters of Chibok
Information
VR/AR	VR
Developer	VR360 Stories
Device	Oculus Quest
Type	Experience
Genre	Documentary
Play Area	Standing
Game Mode	Single-player
Release Date	14 April 2019

See also: VR Apps and Cinematic VR

Daughters of Chibok is an 11-minute Nigerian virtual reality documentary directed by Joel Kachi Benson and produced by his Lagos studio VR360 Stories. Filmed as 360-degree video, it follows Yana Galang, a woman leader in the town of Chibok in Borno State, whose daughter Rifkatu was one of the 276 schoolgirls abducted from their school hostels by Boko Haram on 14 April 2014.

The film premiered at screenings in Nigeria on 14 April 2019, the fifth anniversary of the kidnapping. On 7 September 2019 it won the award for Best VR Immersive Story for Linear Content in the Venice Virtual Reality competition of the 76th Venice International Film Festival. In 2020 it was shown to Oculus Quest owners through Oculus TV during two online festival programmes.

Reviewed 7 October 2026. Checked credits, synopsis, Venice award and jury, Nigerian premiere and screenings, Oculus TV programmes, Voices of VR interview statements, UN visit and follow-up film against the cited sources. About review dates.

Content

Daughters of Chibok is a linear experience: it competed at Venice as linear rather than interactive content, and the viewer looks around the recorded scenes without interacting with the story. The Marché du Film project listing for the piece gives its format as 360-degree video, its play area as standing with three degrees of freedom, and lists it as single-player, shot with a GoPro Omni rig.

The festival synopsis states that the film "deals with the aftermath of the kidnappings, and explores topical global issues of gender rights and the right to education." VR360 Stories described it as the first VR documentary on the Chibok story, one that "gives a voice to the mothers" and focuses on their hopes and on how they keep the pain at bay. In the film, Yana shows how the women of Chibok farm the land with simple hoes, without fertilizer or pesticides, to support their remaining children. In Techpoint Africa's account, the film takes the viewer through Yana's home, her farmland and the Chibok Government Secondary School from which the girls were abducted. In Benson's director's statement, Yana still washes her daughter's clothes and packs them in a small bag while she waits for her return. According to BusinessDay, Rifkatu's mother also describes in the film how she married young and had eight children.

Production

Benson is a Nigerian documentary filmmaker. Interviewed by Kent Bye for the Voices of VR podcast at the 2019 Venice festival, he said he had moved into VR about a year and a half earlier. He said he flew to Chicago for training in 360-degree video production, that it was in the United States that he first wore a VR headset, and that his first VR film, In Bakassi, profiled children living with PTSD in a camp for internally displaced persons that housed about 36,000 people. According to Techpoint Africa, In Bakassi premiered at the Cairo Film Festival.

Benson first went to Chibok in January 2019, five years after the kidnapping, where he met Yana Galang. In the podcast interview he said the trip came about while he was making another documentary that passed through the town, and that he carried a VR camera on such shoots in case a story presented itself. He also said the community had been exploited by the press and by NGOs, and that it took his team a few days of explaining that their intentions were genuine before it opened up to them. One parent told him that 33 parents had died from trauma linked to the loss of their children, and Benson said this question about the parents' welfare became the focus of the film.

Yana Galang speaks in Hausa in her interview. Benson chose an English voice-over by a narrator with a northern Nigerian accent instead of subtitles, because he did not want viewers to miss events in the 360-degree scene while reading. For the soundtrack, he recorded a local choir in Maiduguri singing the Lord's Prayer in Hausa, which the mothers recite before their meetings, and had the music composed around it. The Venice festival credits list Benson as screenwriter and editor, Cobhams Asuquo for music and Idowu Aremu for sound, with VR360 Stories as the production company. BellaNaija reported that the film was jointly produced by VR360 Stories and the Northeast Humanitarian Innovation Hub (NEHIH).

Release

The film opened on 14 April 2019 at several venues in Nigeria, including Freedom Park in Lagos. In June 2019 the British Council hosted a screening at its premises in Ikoyi, Lagos; that screening was organized by VR360 Stories with Imisi 3D, the Northeast Humanitarian Innovation Hub and the Murtala Muhammed Foundation, and doubled as a fundraiser for the mothers of the missing girls. The VR360 Stories page for the film carried a donation form for the 112 mothers still waiting for their daughters.

Date	Event	Notes
14 April 2019	Premiere screenings in Nigeria	Venues included Freedom Park, Lagos
June 2019	British Council, Ikoyi, Lagos	Screening and fundraiser for the Chibok mothers
28 August - 7 September 2019	76th Venice International Film Festival	Venice Virtual Reality competition, linear content; won Best VR Immersive Story for Linear Content
29 May - 7 June 2020	We Are One: A Global Film Festival (YouTube and Tribeca Enterprises)	Online premiere, viewable on Oculus Quest through Oculus TV
14-19 July 2020	Games for Change Festival, XR for Change Immersive Showcase	360-degree films hosted on Oculus TV for Oculus Quest
19 August 2020	Oculus TV selection for World Humanitarian Day	Listed among titles on Oculus TV for Oculus Quest
16 September 2021	Afrika Film Festival Köln	VR programme; listed as Nigeria 2019, English original version, 11 minutes
13 May 2025	Rhodes House, Oxford	Screened with the 2024 feature Mothers of Chibok at a Rhodes House film forum

In September 2019 Yana Galang travelled to United Nations headquarters in New York during the General Assembly to ask world leaders not to forget the girls who were still missing. Africa Renewal, a United Nations publication, described the film as an award-winning virtual reality documentary that "aims to revive interest in the missing girls", with Galang as its main character. Kent Bye said in the January 2020 podcast episode that Benson had since taken Yana to the United Nations to show the film to representatives and seek support for the parents.

Reception

The Venice Virtual Reality jury in 2019 was chaired by Laurie Anderson, with Alysha Naples and Francesco Carrozzini as jurors. It gave Daughters of Chibok the Best VR Immersive Story for Linear Content award; the other two VR prizes went to The Key by Céline Tricart (Grand Jury Prize for Best VR Immersive Work) and A Linha by Ricardo Laganaro (Best VR Immersive Experience for Interactive Content). BusinessDay reported before the festival that it was the only African VR documentary among the works selected for the linear content competition. Nigerian outlets covered the win, with The Native describing the film as following Yana Galang's daily ritual of cleaning her daughter's clothes.

In January 2020, Forbes contributor Jesse Damiani included Daughters of Chibok in his list of the top 50 XR experiences of 2019. Kent Bye called it "an amazingly powerful piece" and recommended it to anyone who questions what 360-degree video can do.

Follow-up film

Benson returned to Chibok in 2021, two years after making the VR film, to begin Mothers of Chibok, a feature documentary that premiered at DOC NYC. The Rhodes Trust described the 2024 film as the full-length 2D feature sequel to Daughters of Chibok. Labocine lists it as an 88-minute United States and Nigeria production. Yana Galang joined Benson on the panel at the May 2025 Rhodes House screening.