Uyaiedu Ikpe-Etim is a Nigerian director, screenwriter and producer extoled for her depiction of LGBTQ+ lives in a humane light. Uyaiedu Ikpe-Etim was born in Lagos, Nigeria on June 7, 1989, to Patrick Ikpe-Etim, a federal civil servant who worked with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and a homemaker mother. She has several brothers and sisters, including Nollywood actress Nse Ikpe-Etim.
In 2020, Ikpe-Etim and her producing partner Pamela Adie, took on the task of sharing the stories of Nigeria’s marginalized LGBTQ+ communities. This was a daring decision considering the laws in Nigeria impose a 14-year prison sentence on same-sex marriage, a 10-year sentence on individuals or groups, including religious leaders, who “witness, abet, and aid the solemnization of a same-sex marriage or union,” impose a 10-year prison sentence on public displays of same-sex amorous relationship, and on anyone who “registers, operates, or participates in gay clubs, societies, and organizations,” including supporters of those groups.
The co-founder of Hashtag Media House, a production company dedicated to showcasing the voices of the LGBTQ+ community, Ikpe-Etim wrote and directed Ife, Nigeria’s first lesbian film to deal with the subject matter in a non-stereotypical, humane manner. She and Adie faced condemnation and threats from the National Board of Film and Video Censors, forcing the release of the movie abroad in venues such as the Toronto LGBT Film Festival, the Leeds (England) International Film Festival, and on the streaming platform, ehtvnetwork.com. The love story was Ikpe-Etim’s directorial debut.
A member of Nigeria’s LGBTQ+ community along with her producing partner and the lead actress in the film, Ikpe-Etim was encouraged by her older sister, Nse, to write and consider a non-traditional career path. She wrote her first script at 17 and through her sister, met the Nollywood filmmaker, Jetta Amata, who gave her the opportunity for her first professional writing experience, Queen Amina of Zazzau, at 18. Ikpe-Etim was the youngest person on the project, and later wrote her first film, Guilty Pleasures.
Ikpe-Etim began her college career in South Africa but transferred to a university in Cyprus at 24, where she studied radio, television and film. Continuing to create and hone her film craft by making short films in school and working for directors in Nigeria, she graduated at the top of her class.
The product of a strong mother who encouraged her daughter’s independence, spurred on by television and films that only seemed to depict women as victims without agency or love, Ikpe-Etim started to write about the type of women she wanted to see on film, women that she knew existed but who never saw themselves brought to life in film or literature. She soon noticed another void: Black women in love with Black women. This lack of representation of Black women loving each other, was the beginning of Ife’s origin story.
Although Ikpe-Etim hasn’t released a film since her breakout debut in 2020, her 2015 TEDx talk, “Becoming Free of the English Box” was well received. In 2020, the BBC included her in its list of the 100 Women of the Year. Ikpe-Etim continues to write for TVshows, such as Trepidation, No Fury, and Nkoyo.