Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor

Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor is a producer, writer and director whose work spans film and TV with a clear, unwavering focus on Black, queer and female-led stories. She founded Joi Productions in 2016 and hasn't looked back since — producing the breakout hit Blue Story (2019), Boxing Day (the UK's first all-Black Christmas film), Champion for BBC and Netflix, and most recently Animal, Ashley Walters' directorial debut which picked up the Best Debut Feature award at Berlinale 2025.

I sat down with Joy to talk about how she fell into producing from a betting shop in Hackney, why she was the perfect person to protect Rap Man's voice on Blue Story, the chaos and magic of that opening weekend, what it actually takes to build a sustainable production company in one of the hardest periods in British film history — and why, for Joy, a no is never a no until it's a no.

We also get into Champion, the campaign for a second series, Animo l, her directorial debut Dreamers, and what collective power in the British film industry could actually look like.