Rejoice Abutsa is a writer, film producer, and Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Performing and Media Arts at Cornell University. Her research focus uses Black Media Studies, Gender & Women Studies, Film Theory, and Digitality to explore the transnational circuits of New or neo-Nollywood. 

Rejoice earned her Masters in Creative and Collaborative Enterprise at the University College London, through the Chevening Scholarship; she also completed her undergraduate studies at the Department of Theatre and Film Arts, University of Jos. 

At Cornell University, she is the organizer and curator of Voices and Visions in Black Media: New Directions in Nollywood; for two years, she was the co-chair of the Performing and Media Arts Speaker Series (PMAPS); and has organized several industry-facing panels, including Nollywood Global Circuits with collaborators at Bournemouth University. 

Rejoice has moderated or featured on several panels including, Soyinka, Citizenship & The Moving Image at the Black Film Center & Archive, Indiana University; Bridging the Diaspora Gap at the Institute of African Studies, Emory University; and, The Impact of VODs on African Film Productions at the Nollywood Film Week Paris. 

Rejoice has worked on multiple Nollywood films currently streaming on global platforms and has interviewed some of its top filmmakers. 

Her latest publication, Cultural Pluralisms: Neo-Nollywood and Biyi Bandele’s Ẹlẹ́ṣin Ọba (2022) is available in the Journal of African Cultural Studies.