Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor has produced films including Blue Story, and directed her own Dreamers
Need to know: Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor set up Joi Productions in 2018 after attending the Filmonomics scheme run by Mia Bays, where she was mentored by Bankside Films’ Stephen Kelliher. Having already produced micro-budget features M.L.E. and White Colour Black, Gharoro-Akpojotor made waves with Rapman’s south London-set crime drama Blue Story, produced with Damian Jones, in 2019. The film was temporarily withdrawn from the Vue and Showcase chains after violence at a cinema in Birmingham, but connected with audiences, making over $6m in the UK & Ireland through Paramount.
Gharoro-Akpojotor was born in Nigeria and has lived in the UK since the age of 15. After Blue Story, she produced Aml Ameen’s Christmas comedy Boxing Day, again with Jones and backed by Film4 and the BFI; and earlier this year wrapped Ashley Walters’ directorial debut Animol starring Stephen Graham, Tut Nyuot and Sharon Duncan-Brewster.
2025 also saw the launch of her own writing and directing feature debut Dreamers, about a Nigerian migrant battling the system at a UK asylum removal centre. Produced by Quiddity Films’ Emily Morgan with Gharoro-Akpojotor as executive producer, the film launched in Berlin’s Panorama strand; We Are Parable, which spotlights the work of Black creatives, will release in December in UK & Ireland. The producer has branched into TV too, making 2023 musical series Champion for the BBC and Netflix.
Joi Productions received a BFI Vision award in 2020 and UK Global Screen Fund backing in 2024, while Newen-backed Ringside Media took a minority stake in the company in 2022, when Gharoro-Akpojotor was joined by former Wildgaze development lead Tom Hawkins. Further mentors for Gharoro-Akpojotor have been Ben Roberts, through the BFI Flare mentorship scheme, and Number 9 Films’ Elizabeth Karlsen through Film London’s Breaking The Glass Ceiling.
Key personnel: Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor, Tom Hawkins, producers.
Incoming: Florid, the BBC Film-backed debut feature of UK filmmaker Billy Lumby about a young man’s psychotic breakdown, is in post, co-produced with Rupert Lloyd of Atar Studios. In development is an adaptation of Jacqueline Harpman’s sci-fi novel I Who Have Never Known Men, with The End We Start From author Megan Hunter attached to write.
Other projects in the works at Joi include rap tour drama Brother Of Mine from writer Courttia Newland, plus two projects with Morgan for Gharoro-Akpojotor to direct: an adaptation of Diana Evans’ Ordinary People, and romantic comedy That Girl, co-written with Dreamers actress Aiysha Hart.
Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor says: “We need to break out of the idea of what we think commercial cinema is, and have a broader view of what kind of stories we actually want to tell. Sometimes we’re trying too hard to appeal to everyone internationally, and we forget to just tell the story about what it means to be who you are. I want to see more being done for female filmmakers of colour – not giving them a blank cheque, but giving them opportunities to shadow a director or writer.”
Contact: office@joiproductions.co.uk
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