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Before he had even shot a single frame in Lagos, director Babatunde Apalowo knew his film depicting two men falling in love would never see the inside of a cinema in Nigeria. He made it anyway.

The 37-year-old wrote and helmed “All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White” as a gay-themed love story produced under the Polymath Pictures banner.

For a Nollywood film, Apalowo’s directorial feature debut is an extremely testy on-screen exploration within an African country where homosexuality is illegal and punishable by imprisonment, flogging and death.

Apalowo tells Variety he was shocked a few years ago to hear from a friend that his former roommate at university was lynched for being gay.

“Our residence was small rooms with bunk beds. It’s difficult to move around in that small physical space and not get to know people well. Yet I never knew he was gay.

The Berlin International Film Festival on Wednesday unveiled the final films for its 2023 Panorama section, the Berlinale’s main sidebar.

The 2023 lineup includes several world premieres, including Femme, the debut feature from directors Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping, a drag artist revenge thriller staring 1917 actor George MacKay and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett; The Beast in the Jungle, from Austrian director Patric Chiha (Brothers of the Night), an adaptation of the Henry James novel, starring Anaïs Demoustier, Tom Mercier and Beatrice Dalle; and Joan Baez I Am A Noise, a documentary on the legendary folk singer, from directors Karen O’Connor, Miri Navasky and Maeve O’Boyle.

After Marie Kreutzer’s Oscar contender Corsage, Panorama will get another historic revisionist take on Austrian Empress Elizabeth, aka Sisi, with Sisi & I, a German drama from director Frauke Finsterwalder, featuring Susanne Wolff (The Stranger in Me) as Sisi, and also starring Sandra Hüller, Georg Friedrich,...

Sepideh Farsi’s “La Sirène” (“The Siren”) is opening the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama strand.

The program, which comprises 35 films from 30 countries, including 28 world premieres and 11 debuts, includes new films by Patric Chiha, İlker Çatak, Frauke Finsterwalder, Maite Alberdi, Milad Alami and Apolline Traoré. They feature a galaxy of well-known protagonists and actors such as Joan Baez, Jafar Panahi, Payman Maadi, George MacKay, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Fan Bingbing, Sandra Hüller and Susanne Wolff.

Panorama Selections

“After”

by Anthony Lapia | with Louise Chevillotte, Majd Mastoura, Natalia Wiszniewska

France

World premiere | Debut film

“All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White”

by Babatunde Apalowo | with Tope Tedela, Riyo David, Martha Ehinome Orhiere, Uchechika Elumelu, Floyd Anekwe

Nigeria

World premiere | Debut film

“And, Towards Happy Alleys”

by Sreemoyee Singh | with Jafar Panahi, Nasrin Soutodeh, Jinous Nazokkar, Farhad Kheradmand, Aida Mohammadkhani

India

World premiere | Debut film | Documentary

“La Bête dans la...

London-set revenge thriller Femme, starring George MacKay and Candyman actor Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, has been selected for the Berlinale’s Panorama strand.

It was among a raft of fresh additions to the festival’s Panorama, Generation and Berlinale Special strands announced on Wednesday.

The picture is co-directed by Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping and is based on their 2021 BAFTA-nominated short film of the same name.

Stewart-Jarrett plays a drag queen whose life is destroyed by a homophobic attack and then plots revenge on one of the perpetrators (MacKay) when he spots him in a gay sauna.

The 21 new Panorama titles also include France-based Austrian director Patric Chiha’s The Beast In The Jungle.

A contemporary adaptation of Henry James’s 1903 novella of the same name, the drama follows a man and woman who frequent a huge nightclub for 25 years in anticipation of a mysterious event.

The cast features Anaïs Demoustier,...

On the heels of their successful collaboration on the hit movie "The Department," Inkblot Productions and Film One distribution have announced the upcoming release of their new feature film titled "Out of Luck," a gangster-thriller that follows the adventures of a young lottery operator (played by Tope Tedela) whose life is turned upside down when a local gangster (Femi Branch) insists that he pay out on a lottery he did not win. His attempts to pay the gangster take him on a thrill ride from the slums of Lagos Island to the mansions of Ikoyi, and back again. “Every day, all over Nigeria, millions gather to play the lottery, hoping for a better life,” says Director...