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21st Century Cinema

Masquerade

14m

Directed by Olive Nwosu • United Kingdom, Nigeria • 2021
Starring Teniola Aladese, Sheila Chukwulozie, Loveth Onyemaobi

Salewa (Sheila Chukwulozie), a young queer woman living with her wife in London, returns to her hometown in Nigeria for her mother’s funeral. There, she confronts her complex feelings about the woman who raised her, her homeland, and the first, seemingly impossible love she was forced to leave behind. A sensorially rich, psychologically immersive exploration of desire, dislocation, and the journey toward healing, Olive Nwosu’s tour-de-force short exists on a dreamy, drifting wavelength all its own.

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