THE STORY – A determined taxi driver in Lagos forms an unexpected bond with a group of free-spirited women, leading her into a world of friendship and self-discovery despite the risks along the way.
THE CAST – Jessica Gabriel’s Ujah, Amanda Oruh, Tinuade Jemiseye, & Binta Ayo Mogaji
THE TEAM – Olive Nwosu (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 93 Minutes
In the sprawling, kinetic metropolis of Lagos, Nigeria, the air is thick with more than just the exhaust of gridlocked traffic; it is heavy with the weight of a systemic, stifling patriarchy. In her electrifying debut feature, “Lady,” director Olive Nwosu captures a portrait of a city in the throes of a revolution, viewing this cultural seismic shift through the eyes of a woman navigating the literal and metaphorical roadblocks of a country that often refuses to see her.
At the center of this storm is Lady (played with staggering, multi-layered intensity by Jessica Gabriel’s Ujah). Lady is a rare sight: a female cab driver in a profession dominated by men who treat her presence as either an anomaly or an invitation for verbal assault. She navigates the colorful, bustling streets with a practiced, stoic fire, her cab adorned with a sticker that reads “sing your own song.” It is a quiet mantra, a tiny beacon of autonomy in a world designed to drown out female voices.
The film’s structure mimics the tireless cadence of Lady’s life. By day, she maneuvers through the chaos of the city, soundtracked by a smooth, jazzy score that elevates her commute into something almost meditative. By night, the tone shifts into something more subdued and tender as she cares for her grandmother (Binta Ayo Mogaji), who took her in as a child. The arrival of Pinky (Amanda Oruh), a childhood friend who vanished five years ago, acts as the catalyst that disrupts Lady’s equilibrium. Pinky is a ghost from a traumatic past, someone who returns to the very place Lady once hoped to escape. Their reunion raises one of the film’s most haunting questions: Why do we return to the places that broke us, and why do we stay when we have spent our lives dreaming of the exit? For Lady, that exit has always been Freetown, Sierra Leone—her mother’s home and a symbol of a life unburdened by the ghosts of Lagos.
Nwosu expertly frames this personal drama against the backdrop of the 2012 “Occupy Nigeria” protests. As the government removes fuel subsidies, making petrol scarce and Lady’s job nearly impossible, the public discontent mirrors Lady’s internal turmoil. There is a gritty, 70s-noir aesthetic here, where the city’s lights flicker and dim, like Lady chasing a dream that seems to be fading. When Lady takes a gig driving Pinky and other sex workers to their nightly appointments for a local pimp, the film moves into a space of complex sisterhood. Despite her initial discomfort, captured in a hilariously awkward scene in a car packed with dancing, singing women, Lady finds a shared language with them. These women aren’t just chasing money; they are chasing survival in a country that offers them no safety net. Lady knows this desperation intimately. Her own mother was forced into the same cycles of survival, a trauma that Nwosu leaves partially shrouded in mystery, heightening the sense of a past that can never be fully reconciled.
Ujah’s performance is nothing short of masterful. She wears a “fuck you” ball cap like armor, rapping her own lyrics to mask a deep-seated ache. In one moment, she is a pillar of fearless defiance; in the next, her expression softens into that of a scared child, overwhelmed by the weight of her pain. She sees the same cycles repeating in Pinky and reacts with an anger that she can barely contain—an anger born of the realization that for many women in Nigeria, liberation may only be a myth.
“Lady” is a film about the courage it takes to heal while the world around you is burning. It is a powerful evocation of the search for personal freedom set against the chants of a national revolution. As the streets cry “Enough is enough,” Lady’s journey becomes a visceral reminder that the most radical act a woman can perform in a world built for men is to survive, to remember, and—eventually—sing a song of her own making.
