Dreamers team on humanising migrants and their preparation techniques
To celebrate their new movie Dreamers, I sat down with writer-director Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor and lead actors Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjo and Ann Akinjirin at the Sea Containers hotel during the London Film Festival.
In the tender drama, Adékoluẹjo plays Isio, a Nigerian migrant who is caught working illegally in the U.K. and sent to Hatchworth Removal Centre, where she awaits the outcome of her asylum request. During her time at the centre, Isio befriends fellow migrants Nana (Diana Yekinni) and Atefeh (Aiysha Hart) and starts to fall for her roommate Farah (Akinjirin).
In our conversation, we discussed how they prepared for the film and how they hope Dreamers is a force for good at a time when immigration is a constant hot topic on the news.
Joy, what research did you do to portray these centres as accurately as possible?
Joy: I spoke to a lot of people, and my production designer did research as well. I’d never been detained, but I kind of knew people who had been. We also did this, they have like Friends of Yarl’s Wood, which you join and you kind of become a friend of one person in there, so all those kind of things where you get to talk to people. You’re not allowed inside, of course, but (there are) the images that are available to see.
One of the things that always struck me with these places is, you know, they’re not prisons, but you’re not allowed out. They’re sort of like old people’s homes meets hospitals. They have this thing where they call you residents, so you’re not a prisoner, but again, you’re not allowed out. Also, the colour scheme in them… they don’t want to be like prison-y. We took some liberties, but like the lavender and those sort of like turquoise-y colours are what you usually find in those places because again, they want to feel like you’re somewhere that’s quote-unquote ‘safe’, but it really isn’t.
I find those places really ironic in how they present and what they are. Because also, you’re not in prison but the guards treat you like prisoners because the only way for them to, I guess, to do their job is to treat you like a number… People come and go all the time, so they can’t get emotionally attached to anyone. So yeah, I spoke to a lot of people, and there’s some of my own little work here and there as well.
Did you two do any sort of prep before filming?
Ronke: Oh yeah, most definitely. I guess, especially with the character of Isio, I’ve not had those lived experiences. My parents were immigrants but I was born and bred in London so that idea of displacement fascinates me as an artist, anyway. But knowing the journey that this character has to go through for our film, I was like, ‘Ah, I don’t know if Ronke would be able to sustain just finding it internally emotionally without there actually being some kind of structure around the reasons this character behaves in the way that she does.’ Because there are times in the journey whereas even I, as the artist, go, ‘Oooh, Isio, you’re being a bit mean to Farah.’ (laughs) ‘You’re being a bit much!’ You know what I mean?
To not only justify but to understand so that you can portray accurately, I decided to go down the journey of understanding the science behind what her body is doing actually. What happens where you’re living in a traumatised state and your system is responding in fight or flight… Your muscles are all tense so your body is actually existing in a place of constriction so when she’s touched by Farah, it doesn’t acknowledge what that’s supposed to do. And love in and of itself warms Isio throughout the film.
So before we started shooting, I did a lot of research around how physically actually that story can be told so that Ronke had some form of like distance (laughs). Do you know what I mean? You know, you hear actors all the time going, ‘I suffer for my art!’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, great, but you know, I want to do this for the rest of my life so suffering… if it works, it works, but I prefer not to.’
Ann: Similarly, but different. I’m quite a cerebral person and I think there’s quite a few elements of that in Farah’s character. They are more internalised people, so there was a lot of thinking that I did and also trawling the text to find clues about who she is, what she’s about, what her world was before. Or looking at the text and going, ‘Oh, there’s a question there that I need to figure out or bring to Joy.’ Joy gave us so many questions that I wasn’t actually considering. So it was a combination of thinking about the character, thinking about the clues that I saw in the text and learning about the world.
Obviously, I don’t have any of the lived experiences at all. But also, on the journey, similarly to what Ronke spoke about the physical approach. Something I do anyway when I’m playing a character is I like to figure out how the character embodies themself, and how Farah embodied herself, to do what I do. Once I found that, and a lot of time, costume and footwear will influence that for me, so Farah then became someone that was a lot more grounded in herself than I would be. I’m a bit more straight, upright, alert. She became lower in (my) body and would sit on a table in a certain way or perch on the edge of a chair, or whatever, that then influenced a lot of things in terms of my approach to her journey.
This film feels so relevant and important, especially in today’s climate. Immigration is always on the news. I think everyone should see this film to have more empathy for people in these centres. Is that one of the goals you set out to achieve with this film?
Joy: 100%. I want to take you on one woman’s journey and how she finds love and she finds friendship… There’s all these policies that government puts in place, and our anger is towards the wrong people. It’s all about how can we humanise immigration, immigrants, and how do we remind ourselves that – without getting too political about it – there are things that I think people forget to think about, whether that be foreign policy, whether that be what has your government done abroad to make those people want to come here? Also, what are they really coming for? It’s these things that I want people to just think about.
And I also want to challenge people to think about the choices, as individuals, that we have. Like, when we go and vote, we have choices. What are we voting for? And how can we influence policies that affect immigration? That’s definitely like blue sky thinking, but I think change happens in small moments. So if the film makes someone go off and be like, ‘Let me think about immigration, let me think about actually what does it even mean?’ ‘Cause I think immigration is one word, but it’s so vast and there’s so many elements to it that people don’t understand. And I think when the media simplifies it to be, ‘Oh, send them home,’ like it’s not even that simple, is the irony of it. So I just want to spark conversation. I have no fixes; I don’t know how to change any of it. I haven’t got a clue, but I think we can do it together. Maybe not me, but we can all do it together.
Ann: I think it’s also important to really look at (the) narrative, you know, and how certain times of migration seem fine. Like, ‘Oh, we love an expat.’ It’s fine for an expat to just go somewhere else and live. But then, ‘Oh, those people that have come from Syria, they’re coming to steal our jobs.’ And it’s just a bit like, ‘Ummmm, no. No, I don’t think that’s what’s happening.’ Or, when you think about, over the years, when displaced or orphaned children were migrated after wars, that’s OK, but when it’s that war over there in this day and age, that’s not OK. We have this need to justify bad behaviour or bad attitude by making ‘others’ of people.
What’s great about this film, it doesn’t allow you to make them ‘other’, because you’re just watching them become pals, you’re watching them miss their children, you’re watching them fall in love, all things that are relevant that we all have done, we all feel, we all understand, recognise and empathise with. You can’t then other them and go, ‘Well they deserve to be in that centre because they stole my job.’ They didn’t. They’ve come here because they had to. No one puts themselves and their child on a dinghy across the sea to risk death because they want to steal my job. (Sighs).
Well said.
Joy: Ann for PM.
Ronke: I’m voting!
Ann: I think those things are important about let’s really look at the narrative and projection of, ‘Oh, those people can be expats but these people can’t.’ What if they did just want to come for a better life and a better job in the same way that I may want to go to Thailand? Why can’t they do that? You know, I always get really funny about the words ‘migrant’ and ‘immigrant’ and ‘expat’ – it’s the same thing, but we choose how we label in accordance to what we think is OK and what we’re comfortable with, but it’s the same thing. The action is actually exactly the same, and we need to challenge that.
*MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD*
When you watch the film, what is the scene or sequence you’re most proud of?
Joy: I mean, my favourite scene, I think it’s been my favourite ever since I wrote the scene, before I even shot it, was the dream house sequence. That’s always been my favourite scene, just because I think it’s like – as cheesy as it sounds – it’s the epitome of love. That’s why it’s my favourite and it’s like what the film is about. It’s like everyone wants that sort of like beautiful, dreamy, look at us happy in love, look at the lovely light and all of the above.
Ann: I think my favourite scene is the scene where Farah gets taken, when she’s being deported, because I think so much happens in that scene. It’s the scene that I feel like Isio, I think, it’s like, ‘Oh, OK, this is a different game now.’ And you’re just at a point where you’re hoping for something else, or you’re expecting something else, and that’s what happens in those centres. Just at the point where you stop thinking about it and you relax into your situation, it gets ripped apart. And because the film is so light and joyful in places and you’re watching a love story unfold and then suddenly, you are smacked right in the face with the reality of what this place is and what they are facing. There’s something in that scene that really tears me apart.
Ronke: OK, I think the scene that is my favourite is the scene between Isio and Nana when Nana decides to embrace her by being vulnerable about what she’s going through with the guard. Because their relationship, it’s like, ‘Why doesn’t Nana like me?’ the whole time. It’s like, ‘What did I do to Nana?!’ She has a yearning for Nana to acknowledge her in a way, and Diana’s performance, ah. I mean, do you remember on the day, I was just like, ‘What is this?!’ It’s so exposing and fragile and really honest that Ronke and Isio realises that, ‘Wow, this woman was just protecting herself the whole time.’ And it was stunning to be able to be in it, but also stunning to watch. I love it in the film because you go – like Ann was saying – your expectation of everyone constantly shifts, and you’re like, ‘Wow, that’s a real moment for both of them on that journey.’
Dreamers is in cinemas from Friday 5th December
This interview has been edited for length and clarity