Dreamers is the most striking British debut of 2025 – a romantic, urgent and desperately sad glimpse into the world of immigration detention centres and the relationships that can flower there. It’s also being released into a moment of heightened hostility towards immigrants to Britain, from all across the political spectrum. But such volatile cultural temperatures aren’t exclusive to 2025, either.
For filmmaker Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor – a first-time feature director with producer credits on UK hits including Blue Story and Boxing Day – negativity surrounding immigrants has dominated headlines during every step of Dreamers’ multi-year development, and it goes back further. “We’re having the exact same conversations about ‘immigrants taking your jobs’ that we were having 20 years ago,” she says. “It hasn’t moved on. I want to challenge people to make different choices and really think for themselves.”
