Ìfé the Sequel Set for World Premiere at 40th BFI Flare Festival

ìfé the Sequel has been selected for its world premiere at the 40th BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival. The film will screen this March at BFI Southbank in London, marking its first public showing and placing the Nigerian production within one of the UK’s leading queer film platforms.

The premiere is scheduled for Monday, March 23, 2026, with a second screening on Tuesday, March 24, both at BFI Southbank.

Now in its 40th year, BFI Flare is hosted annually by the British Film Institute and focuses on LGBTQIA+ cinema from around the world. According to the film’s team, ìfé the Sequel was submitted after the official deadline through a late cold email and was subsequently fast-tracked by programmers as a priority title for the 2026 edition.

The selection positions the sequel within an international festival circuit that has increasingly become a space for African queer storytelling, particularly at a time when such narratives continue to face restrictions at home.

Director Pamela Adie described the premiere as significant for the team and for the wider community represented in the film. In a statement, she said bringing the project to life was both personal and political.

"Bringing this story to life was an act of both love and resistance," says Director Pamela Adie. ”To have our World Premiere at the BFI Flare’s 40th anniversary is not just a win for our team, but a win for the diverse, unseen narratives of Nigeria. We are telling our own stories, on our own terms." 

Directed by Pamela Adie, ìfé the Sequel continues the story introduced in the 2020 film Ìfé. The new film follows two women who reconnect three years after a painful separation. At the time of their reunion, both are at different turning points in their lives: one is married to a man, while the other is preparing to marry a woman. Their unexpected encounter forces them to confront unresolved emotions and reconsider the paths they have chosen.

Set in contemporary Nigeria, the film examines questions of love, identity, safety and personal truth. It places its characters within a social environment where queer relationships remain legally and culturally contested, adding tension to what is fundamentally an intimate story about second chances.

The cast includes Uzoamaka Power, Gbubemi Ejeye, Ozzy Agu, Binta Ayo Mogaji, Adunolaoluwa Osilowo and Najite Dede, among others.

The sequel builds on the foundation of Ìfé (2020), widely regarded as one of the first full-length Nigerian films centred on a lesbian relationship. Executive-produced by Pamela Adie and directed by Uyaiedu Ikpe-Etim, the original project followed two women navigating love in a society that criminalises same-sex relationships.

Developed in collaboration with Equality Hub, a Nigerian NGO focused on LGBTQ rights, the film sought to challenge Nollywood’s long-standing absence of nuanced queer representation. Upon the release of its trailer in July 2020, Ìfé generated both support and criticism, reflecting the broader national conversation around LGBTQ visibility.

While distribution for the original film faced limitations, it gained attention locally and internationally for attempting to tell a same-sex love story without framing its characters as caricatures or moral warnings, a shift from how queer themes have historically appeared in mainstream Nigerian cinema.

The world premiere of ìfé the Sequel at BFI Flare comes at a time when independent Nigerian filmmakers continue to rely on international festivals to platform stories that may struggle to secure domestic theatrical runs.

For Adie, who has long been active in LGBTQ advocacy, the sequel represents a continuation of that effort through narrative storytelling rather than activism alone. With its London debut set for late March, the film’s reception at BFI Flare will likely shape its subsequent festival and distribution journey.

For now, the immediate focus remains on its two scheduled screenings at BFI Southbank as part of the 40th anniversary edition of the festival.

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