Boy Meets Girl short film about Chibok girls debuts on YouTube

A short film inspired by the Boko Haram abduction of Chibok girls in 2014 will start streaming on April 14, 2023.

Boy Meets Girl follows a seemingly ordinary day for 15-year-old Musa (Gabriel Dung), a school student whose life forever changes following a bus encounter with a young girl (Aaliyah Atazamu).

A bus encounter changes Musa's life in 'Boy Meets Girl' Pulse Nigeria

The short is directed by the award-winning Nigerian-American filmmaker, Kaelo Iyizoba, whose previous work, Nkemefuna, explored the aftermaths of the 9/11 terrorist attack in the United States.

"Over time, it becomes too easy to reduce entire lives to mere numbers. We can distance ourselves from their humanity, forgetting that they loved and were loved, just like us," he noted while talking about the film.

Boy Meets Girl, produced by Adnaan Muhammed-Ali and Conrad Johnson-Omodiagbe, won the award for Outstanding Experimental Film at the 2021 Abuja International Film Festival.

Gabriel Dung and Aaliyah Atazamu are the stars of 'Boy Meets Girl' Pulse Nigeria

The film confronts the unsettling truth about the mass abduction of children in Nigeria and is a timely reminder of the country's most infamous terror event.

"The film unveils some of the insidious tactics used by extremist groups to manipulate vulnerable individuals.

"It also serves as a reminder to us all of the urgent need to address the underlying grievances that fuel terrorism in Nigeria today," Muhammed-Ali said.

Still from 'Boy Meets Girl' Pulse Nigeria

Boy Meets Girl will debut on YouTube on April 14, exactly nine years after jihadists abducted 276 students from the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok in Borno State on April 14, 2014.

Despite the fierce global Bring Back Our Girls campaign that demanded their release, more than 100 of the girls are yet to return home.