Writer-director Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor and actors Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjo and Ann Akinjirin talk bringing the powerful story to life on the screen
BY NIC CROSARA, IMAGE BY WE ARE PARABLE
In writer-director Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor’s (Blue Story, Boxing Day) new film, Dreamers, audiences get to witness a powerful immigration story, that is also a queer love story. We follow Isio (Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjo), a Nigerian migrant detained after living undocumented in the UK for two years. Isio is convinced that the only way out is to follow the rules, even when her charismatic new roommate, Farah (Ann Akinjirin), warns her otherwise.
This is a film that has, and will continue to, impact audiences in a big way. I got the chance to speak with Joy, Ronkẹ and Ann ahead of the film’s release in UK cinemas. It was clear to me from our conversation that making this film has also had a significant impact on them all.
When did you know you wanted to tell this story?
J: When I was 25, I sought asylum in the UK because of my sexuality. I’ll never forget sitting in the Home Office in Croydon, surrounded by people desperately trying to explain why they deserved safety, and being asked by an officer, “How are you gay?” It was a moment that crystallised how impersonal and dehumanising the system could be.
That experience became the emotional foundation for Dreamers. I wanted to create a film that humanises people seeking asylum, to remind audiences that behind every statistic or headline is a person with hope, fear, and love. At its heart, Dreamers is a love story about two women who find each other in the most unlikely circumstances and hold on to love in spite of everything stacked against them. It’s a story about resilience, identity, and the power of connection to transcend borders and bureaucracy.
Anti-immigration views are something that is sadly always present in the UK. But in recent years, this has alarmingly intensified. What do you think of the significance of this film coming out at such a time?
J: We’re living through a time when immigration is often reduced to rhetoric – to numbers, to fear, to politics. Dreamers offers a counter-narrative. It invites people to experience immigration not as a debate, but as a human story. It invites people to see immigration through a human lens – not policy or fear, but love and empathy – which was the intention. It challenges people on their own view of immigration and what it is that they’re scared of. I show a simple love story between two people; if viewers leave frustrated, that reflects the reality many asylum seekers face daily.
R: We are connected in more ways than we can explain. But if we get close enough, still enough, to bear witness. To watch a movie. Remember that others are living and loving through the darkest of times. It encourages us and empowers us, I hope, to live and love too. The land has never said “claim me”. It’s quite entitled of us all to say, this piece of land here is mine.
A: The anti-immigration views at the moment are so far away from the people, from the stories and from the emotions. They’re lacking in empathy. So the significance of this film is to remind people of the reason why, and the reason why is not the reason that we’re told; it’s not because “people just want to steal jobs”. It’s not that easy. The journey over, to migrate to different countries and then the life that these people end up living in these countries isn’t easy. So to make the choice to live a difficult life means that they must be trying to escape something so much more difficult. I think we’re losing sight of the humans and the human nature inside of these stories, and that’s why I think that this film is so important.
Ronkẹ and Ann, how did you work together to build your onscreen chemistry?
R: Both Ann and I have known each other and Joy for a long time. But luckily, we had a great rehearsal period in the location where we shot the entire film. We also had an astronomical intimacy coordinator, El Wood, whose practices and coaching allowed our characters to explore each other more intimately. Ann also hosted a wonderful games night at her home. I enlisted my mum to cook for everyone on set. Every day there was laughter, it’s a love story after all.
A: Ronkẹ and I had worked together before, but it was never as two co-actors in a project, so this was the first time that we both shared screen time. We were quite fortunate that we had a really strong pre-existing warmth and chemistry and friendship before we worked on the project. Joy was exceptional in helping to nurture and manoeuvre what we already had into who these characters were because Ronke is not Isio, and I am not Farah. Although we had a great foundation to work from, we did have to do work in the rehearsals with Joy‘s guidance to take what we already had and turn it into who Farah and Isio are and what their relationship and chemistry is.
Can you remember the first queer film you watched and how it made you feel?
J: It wasn’t the first queer film I saw, but the first that really stayed with me was Sharon Pollack’s Everything Relative. I watched it at a time when I was searching for representations of “otherness” – something that reflected even a fragment of my own experience. There’s a character, Maria, whose family rejects her because she’s queer. That resonated so strongly with me as a Nigerian woman who wasn’t out at the time.
R: Yes, it was Caramel by Nadine Labaki. I got this film on DVD after winning a competition on Twitter. I was 17 and I think I had to write a poem, who knows. But I got six DVDs. This one stood out because it was about women in a salon – I had grown up in a salon – in Beirut navigating their intimate lives, with such captivating abandon. It was like being transported from one hair shop to another
A: I can’t actually remember the first queer film that I watched, but I do remember back in the early noughties there was a TV show called Sugar Rush. The lead character had moved from London to Brighton, and she made friends with a girl whose nickname was Sugar and she was discovering that she had feelings for another woman. When I was younger, there wasn’t the open dialogue or portrayal of sexuality that we have now, so it was really eye-opening seeing a different type of coming-of-age story on screen.
Dreamers is coming to UK cinemas from 5 December. You can watch the trailer below.
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