Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor has had an exciting journey within the film world. A producer for over a decade, they've worked across short film, TV and features. Now, Gharoro-Akpojotor has turned their hand to directing a feature with Dreamers. It's a hell of a debut, with the immigrant-experience drama making its debut at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year. Before showing at the London Film Festival, Dreamers was featured at the Dinard British & Irish Film Festival, where FILMHOUNDS sat down for a chat with Gharoro-Akpojotor.

Dreamers follows Nigerian migrant Isio (Ronke Adekoluejo), who is detained in an immigration removal centre in the UK. As she awaits a response to her asylum request, Isio falls for her charismatic roommate, Farah (Ann Akinjirin). The chemistry between the leads is electrifying, but they had no chemistry reads; only little rehearsal time. Gharoro-Akpojotor explains, “We had one day with an intimacy coordinator, which I think was great. She came in to rehearse the intimacy scenes, but it was really, for me, a great way for them to find their thing.”

Not just about immigration, the film is a piece of queer cinema, but the two topics are very much linked. “Somebody asked me why did I use lesbians as a way of talking about immigration”, reveals Gharoro-Akpojotor. “Apart from the fact that it's a bit of my story, ultimately it's to highlight how ridiculous the system is. One of the things they ask you to do, if you are a queer person, is prove [that] you are gay. How does a person prove that they're gay?”