It’s a high-stakes gambit to assemble a cast of relative newcomers for a first feature film — especially when that film is set against the sprawling, kinetic, unpredictable backdrop of the Nigerian megacity of Lagos.
But if early returns are anything to go by, British Nigerian writer-director Olive Nwosu struck paydirt with the ensemble cast of her debut, “Lady,” which took home the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Acting Ensemble after its world premiere last month at Sundance.
Now Nwosu’s electrifying film, which follows a hard-edged young cabbie’s unexpected journey of self-discovery after befriending a group of sex workers, will travel to the Berlin Film Festival, where it will have its international premiere Feb. 18 in the Panorama section.
This time, stars Jessica Gabriel’s Ujah, Amanda Oruh and Tinuade Jemiseye hope to celebrate that triumph firsthand.
In a dispiriting sign of the times, the three actors — along with co-stars Binta Ayo Mogaji, Seun Kuti and Bucci Franklin — were forced to sit out the Park City premiere, after being denied travel visas by the Trump administration, which cracked down this year on travel from dozens of countries, including Nigeria.
As “Lady” was winning over audiences at the prestigious U.S. fest, Oruh took to X to share her heartbreak and anger at having to miss out, posting that “to be denied a visa for something I legitimately earned, because of my nationality plus politics isn’t just disappointing, it’s DEHUMANIZING.”
“I felt angry, I felt cheated,” she wrote. “To be honest, I cried for days because I felt ROBBED.”
Speaking to Variety along with her co-stars ahead of the Berlinale, Oruh describes the emotional rollercoaster of scrolling through photos and videos sent by the film’s producers as she followed the premiere from Lagos, at one point donning a fancy dress in her bedroom “to feel what it would feel like if I were at Sundance.”
“Looking at the pictures, I was smiling from ear to ear, feeling immense pride for the work we’ve done,” says Oruh, who plays Pinky, one of a tight-knit cohort of boisterous sex workers plying their after-hours trade across the dark underbelly of Lagos.
“Beneath the disappointment, we were thrilled that people got to see it,” adds Ujah, who stars opposite Oruh as Pinky’s childhood friend, a taxi driver who dreams of escaping her hard-scrabble life. “Our story lives on [and] is having a life of its own.”
In some ways, the ordeal exemplifies the strength and perseverance at the heart of “Lady,” which follows its titular heroine — one of the few female cab drivers working in the Nigerian metropolis — as she’s reluctantly pulled into the orbit of Pinky and her crew of wisecracking, straight-talking, glammed-up sex workers.
Ostracized and shunned as readily as their services are exploited, the women find comfort and hope in their shared sisterhood — even as their work, and the roiling political crisis that undergirds the film, exposes them to the brutal realities of Nigerian life.
That on-screen sorority, the actors insist, was a by-product of the very real bonds they forged during production. Credit goes to Nwosu, they say, for “creating an environment where empathy, where vulnerability wasn’t just allowed — it was celebrated,” according to Oruh. Ujah praises the director for building a “community” on set, creating “an atmosphere that made us feel safe to be us.”
That community, says Jemiseye, who plays the fun-loving Sugar, persisted long after production wrapped. “These are my women for real,” she says, choking back tears. “These are my sisters.”
“Lady” was financed by the BFI, Film4 and Screen Scotland, with additional funding from Level Forward and Amplify Capital. It was produced by Alex Polunin for Ossian International, John Giwa-Amu for Good Gate, and Stella Nwimo. Co-producers are Adé Sultan Sangodoyin and Jamiu Shoyode of Lagos-based Emperium Films. HanWay is handling world sales.
With just days to go before the film’s Berlin premiere, the cast’s visa status again remains up in the air — although the actors are hopeful that the E.U. will be a more gracious host than the U.S. proved to be.
“Hopefully, Berlin will be a moment that we finally get to sit together as castmates, as sisters, with the amazing director and the producers — to watch it together and see the power of what we’ve made,” says Oruh.