Nollywood gay film starts well, even sex scenes, but then…
A gay-themed Nollywood short film successfully portrays two men in a deep romantic relationship but, in the end, utterly fails to show the reality of what it means to be gay.
The 22-minute Nollywood film “Gay’s Diary Reloaded” is available online on YouTube from HumbleLand TV, a local Nollywood platform. Its actors are little known: Humble Dhera F, Amaka Smart, Ubi Onuomah, Ikeh Ejedike, Ifeanyi Sunday, Callista Iwu, John Damian, etc.
The film starts off showing two gay men who are in love with each other. It is obvious that the actors are amateurs, but they play those roles fairly well.
As is common with Nollywood films, video quality is fair and sound quality is poor. In certain scenes, you almost have to struggle to hear what the actors are saying.
From beginning to end, the storyline and the whole direction of the film are vague. Still, there are some very good scenes, especially when Judge, one of the lead characters, courageously challenges his uncle after being condemned for being gay.
Also, the sex scenes could have been presented better, but kudos for their efforts; it was more than what could have been expected.
The major concern with the film is that the ending is a disappointing cliché. It takes the same old religious twist: Nollywood always demonizes homosexuality and presents it as a problem and as curable.
The two gay lovers in the film are shown in the end to have been converted from being homosexuals and have turned into best friends. Something that is impossible.
When NoStringsNG reached out to the creators of the film at HumbleLand Art Academy, academy founder, and CEO Humble Dhera Francis said that they did not want the public to see the film as pro-gay since Nigerian law condemns homosexuality.
“We were looking at Nigerian society so it won’t look like we are encouraging gayism, because our constitution is against it,” he said.
Of course, that’s no excuse for spreading untruths about homosexuality. Lots of evidence shows that there is nothing wrong with being gay and that homosexuality is a valid sexual orientation. It is well established that a person’s sexual orientation cannot be changed, and there is no universally accepted reason why people are gay.
But overall, the film is a good one. The actors perform well, presenting a more positive and realistic representation of gay characters than what we usually see.
You can watch the film below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfKOCCetL5I
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Overall, this cannot be a “good film” as you state, Mike, because it ends with impossibly successful conversion therapy. There is no excuse for that, even in Nigeria. Conversion therapy is always wrong and any film that depicts it as successful can only be described as religious propaganda that perpetuates anti-gay hatred. Better that this film had not been made at all. It will only provide despair to the gay men seeing it.
that’s your idea of a good film. don’t take the piss. this sounds like a demonising load of nonsense. ‘gayism’.
According to his explanations to journalist , there is no evidence to show that the film had poor ending because he showed the way he tried not to express it like how it could be which was against government laws
All these gay nigerian gay movies could have won awards even abroad if only there wasn’t a religious twist at the end. I’m a bisexual man so watching these movies really piss me off ’cause they don’t portray the reality of homosexuality rather hatred. Next time, directors must work with gay guys to help them direct movies relevantly. Thanks