Nigeria’s first lesbian movie, Ife, goes online to beat NFVCB

Nigeria’s first lesbian movie, Ife, goes online to beat NFVCB

Pamela Adie, producer of ‘Ife’, Nigeria’s first lesbian movie, says the project will be released online during the course of the year. The LGBT+ activ

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Pamela Adie, producer of ‘Ife’, Nigeria’s first lesbian movie, says the project will be released online during the course of the year. The LGBT+ activist said that the controversial movie would be released via an online-demand.

The move had come amid opposition from the National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB) which earlier refused to approve the film for distribution.

Adie described the movie as a watershed in Nigeria, where homosexuality is prohibited by law and offenders could bag 14-year imprisonment if convicted. She added that the decision to release the project online was to afford those interested in it a platform where they can access it.

“Anyone who wants to watch will be able to do so from anywhere in the world,” she said. In Nigeria, there has never been a film like ‘Ife’. No film has had the impact it will have, or already has in Nigeria… The reception to the poster and the trailer has been mad. We expect that it will be madder when the full film is released.”

‘Ife’ means “love” in the Yoruba language. The trailer of the movie which was released in July, sees two naked women lying in bed, stroking each other’s hair and sharing various individual experiences about their conservative backgrounds.