An intimate portrait about masculinity in crisis from a female perspective.

Saina tries to make ends meet as a herdsman in the wintery steppes of Inner Mongolia. While performing at night in breathtaking horseback shows, he by day takes care of his family’s horses while juggling a grumpy father and his dysfunctional relationship with his ex-wife and kid. Unlike the majestic cavalryman he portrays in the show, Saina must discover how the world he grew up in has dramatically changed.

After Isio fled Nigeria due to her homosexuality and lived in England without papers, she is picked up and taken to an asylum centre. She hopes for a fair hearing as long as she adheres strictly to the rules. Her charismatic flatmate Farah, however, thinks this is a naïve mistake. While Isio inevitably gets used to life in the centre, she falls in love with Farah and makes friends with the other women. Their escape fantasies initially seem absurd to Isio, but when she herself is repeatedly thrown back by the system and the promise of a new life is threatened, it becomes clear that the time has come to play by her own rules. In ‘Dreamers’, Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor also deals with her own experience of the British asylum system.