‘Dreamers’ review: a love story set in the confines of a removal centre shows us that “freedom begins in the mind”

“Love isn’t something you have to explain”, Joy Ghadoro-Akpojotor tells her audience. We are an intimate group, sitting quietly in the Watershed cinema after watching the first Bristol screening of Dreamers: ‘a tender story of defiance’.

This exceptional directorial debut from Ghadoro-Akpojotor capitalises on this truism - the film uses the stunning chemistry between Isio (Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́) and Farah (Ann Akinjirin) to pull the audience deeply into the reality of detainment in a ‘removal centre’. During her post-screening discussion with Euella Jackson of Rising Arts Agency, Ghadoro-Akpojotor articulates how the centrality of the love story allowed her to capture the humanity and aliveness of immigration stories. She describes the genesis of the project, grappling with the question: “how do I show people?” How to share the reality of being caught in this system, the multifaceted experiences that go beyond the trauma? Trapped in a detention centre, your dreams and desires are just like anybody else’ – as Ghadoro-Akpojotor says resignedly, “you don’t migrate to steal jobs or claim benefits”. You want the both-big-and-little things that everyone wants. Companionship. Safety. Laughter. Fulfilment. Respect. The chance to simply share a bed with someone you love.

Described as ‘the most striking British film debut of 2025’ by The Independent, Dreamers has received widespread critical acclaim and multiple awards. Ghadoro-Akpojotor seems content with the effect the film has had on audiences, telling us with a smile how she received feedback mere days into its release from people saying that they “see themselves in the characters”. Jackson and Ghadoro-Akpojotor also discuss the importance of “showing love in places you don’t often see it” – acknowledging how, all too often in migrant stories (fictional or on the news), all that is portrayed is trauma and hardship. This can lead to a desensitization for audiences, which has a colossal cultural effect.

By drawing us into a love story within the brutal asylum-seeking process, Dreamers provides a tangible exploration of this experience that includes injustice and trauma, rather than making these elements the basis of the story. We witness the forging of trust between strangers: cross-cultural teasing, shared meals, making art, jollof-offs, tenderness, fear, sensuality, stories. These everyday details ground our experience of the injustices dominating the characters’ lives. Threads of Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘Rapture’ are woven throughout, supporting the film’s gentle union of hope and despair. Duffy’s seismic designation as the first openly lesbian Poet Laureate in 2009 may have influenced Ghadoro-Akpojotor to include these words – a gesture to the progress of the recent past, casting a spell for a better future.

Dreamers meticulously crafts a theatre of compassion with rich, silky lighting and masterful storytelling through colour and sound. For a film that took 8 years to write – “I had to go to therapy in the middle”, Ghadoro-Akpojotor tells us with a wry laugh – it is a remarkable accomplishment to have filmed it in 20 days. There is a steadfast, galvanizing message shared by both the filmmaking process and its story: Dreamers states unequivocally that we must continue to dream beyond our constraints. It does not promise success, or even an ending – the story brings to mind the words of Angela Davis, ‘freedom is a constant struggle’ – but watching their lives in the removal centre, we come to understand that what holds each character together is their willingness to believe or imagine that they will one day get what they need.

This perspective shines from several characters: we see it in Atefeh (Aiysha Hart) and her steadfast mission to find her son, from Farrah’s triumphant spark of love for Isio. When hope is snatched from Isio and she falls apart, the solidarity and kindness of others reminds her that eventually, she must find it again. The film has been described as having a ‘rushed denouement’, but the choice to withhold assured freedom for the characters is part of what makes Dreamers such a resolute, graceful offering to an audience at this time. It tells us that we can make the choice to have hope in the face of unlikely odds. Life is not a bet. It is always worth trying.

Dreamers is available to stream on the BFI Player website.