Pamela Adie returns with ìfé: (The Sequel), a quiet but fierce film about two former lovers who have built very different lives. Adaora is married and living in Lagos; ífé has found a degree of ease in South Africa. Years after their separation, a chance encounter in a Lagos bookstore forces both women to face what they left behind—and what they still long for.
Lagos pulses through the film: crowded streets, cramped private rooms and the weight of public expectation. South Africa, by contrast, offers a space where one character can breathe more freely. Those two settings—one claustrophobic, one roomier—shape the movie’s central friction: personal desire and identity pressed against family obligations, faith and the law.
Why the story matters
For Adie, making films about Black queer Nigerians isn’t only a creative choice; it’s a political statement rooted in personal history. She was once married to a man before coming out, and that past gives ìfé: (The Sequel) a frankness and urgency many mainstream screens have long denied. Her aim is simple but profound: to give viewers the recognition she once lacked, honoring these lives with nuance and dignity.
From improvisation to careful archiving
What started as improvisational storytelling has become a deliberate effort to document lives that are too often erased. Adie talks about moving from instinct to intention—gathering testimonies, foregrounding ordinary gestures, and preserving textures of daily life that might otherwise disappear. Her previous career as a chef—trained attention to texture, restraint and provenance—seeps into her filmmaking. Small domestic details, the rhythm of a conversation, the weight of a hand on a page are treated with the same care a cook brings to balancing a dish.
This is more than aesthetics; it’s cultural preservation. Adie wants these films to serve as evidence and inspiration for artists, researchers and communities who will follow. That archival impulse influences everything from framing and sound design to casting decisions and how the film is distributed.
Risk, protection and creative resistance
Representing same-sex relationships on screen in Nigeria carries real danger. Criminalization and social backlash make visibility risky for everyone involved. Adie has had to plan carefully: whom to cast, where to shoot and how to release the film in ways that protect participants without sacrificing artistic honesty. The result is a film that tries to hold both safety and integrity.
When mainstream distributors balked, Adie turned to grassroots channels and community screenings. Those alternate routes prioritize access and put agency into the hands of the people the film depicts. They also upend industry assumptions: stories like this do find audiences, and they deserve thoughtful, high-quality filmmaking.
Solidarity, practical care and the limits of visibility
Visibility alone isn’t enough; it has to be backed by networks that can offer practical protection. In places where coming out can mean losing family, work or safety, screenings require more than a projector. Secure venues, trusted organizers and strict privacy practices are essential. Local allies, community circuits and international festivals each play distinct roles in safeguarding and amplifying these narratives.
Adie links the cinematic work to real-world events—pointing, for example, to the arrest of two Ugandan women for publicly kissing—as a reminder that colonial-era laws and modern state hostility continue to endanger LGBTQIA+ lives across Africa. Her films become both testimony and resistance: they normalize, they document, and they demand attention from institutions that have often looked the other way.
BFI Flare: sanctuary and spotlight
ìfé: (The Sequel) premieres at BFI Flare on 22 March, as part of the festival running 18–29 March at BFI Southbank. Festivals like Flare do more than show films; they build layers of protection and open pathways to wider audiences. Adie has faced intimidation—including threats from Nigeria’s National Film and Video Censors Board after the first ìfé́—so international platforms mean more than prestige; they can mean safety and reach.
Lagos pulses through the film: crowded streets, cramped private rooms and the weight of public expectation. South Africa, by contrast, offers a space where one character can breathe more freely. Those two settings—one claustrophobic, one roomier—shape the movie’s central friction: personal desire and identity pressed against family obligations, faith and the law.0