Uyaiedu Ikpe-Etim (born 1989) is a Nigerian film producer, screenwriter and filmmaker, who creates works which tell the stories of Nigeria's marginalised LGBTQ communities.
[2] The rights of the LGBT community in Africa are severely persecuted, and Nigeria and its film industry are no exception: in Nollywood homosexual characters are ridiculed and portrayed as predators, moved by economic interests or under the influence of cults and spells and often end up being punished for their actions or saved by the church.
[1] Ìfé is not the first lesbian-themed film to be produced in Nigeria, but it is the first to show such a relationship normally, without prejudice or stereotypes.
[2] However, the production had to face the National Board of Film and Video Censors, which went so far as to threaten its creators with prison sentences for "encouraging homosexuality" in a country where same-sex marriage was banned by law since 2014.
[11] In Uyaiedu's TEDx talk, "Becoming Free of the English Box" she questions where the desire for wanting to drop her African identity came from.