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Artists, tastemakers and executives converged in Kingston, Jamaica February 19 through 23, 2025 for the third annual Island Music Conference (Imc). Launched in 2023 by co-ceo’s Judith Ann Bodley and Sharon Burke, along with Chairman Orville “Shaggy” Burrell, the conference has quickly established itself as a premier hub for networking, music discovery, and critical discussions around the future of reggae and dancehall.

This year’s event, held primarily at Courtleigh Auditorium in downtown Kingston, brought together industry professionals for an array of panels, workshops and performances, offering both new and seasoned artists a chance to gain invaluable insights into the evolving music landscape.

The conference kicked off with a cocktail event Wednesday evening, followed by all-white dinner hosted by Shaggy. The “Boombastic” singer, who has long been a champion of dancehall reggae’s international expansion, sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss his role in the conference and why he felt compelled to be part of it.

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.

While there's no denying Clint Eastwood has played some of the fastest gunslingers in Western movies, there are plenty of gunfighters played by other Western stars. The Man With No Name and the High Plains Drifter are just a few characters he built his reputation on for being quick-drawing guns-for-hire, but there have been plenty of other actors, from John Wayne to Glenn Ford, who have also done impressive things with a pair of six-shooters. Like lawmen, gunslingers were a common archetype in the American Frontier but allowed for a little moral ambiguity.

Because of their propensity for dark and violent pasts, only particular actors took on this sort of character. For someone like Gregory Peck, who had a tendency to only play heroic parts, they offered a different challenge to change his reputation as a performer. Gunslingers were an important archetype that helped shape the mythos of the Wild West,...

All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White, the debut feature from director

Babatunde Apalow, has won the 2023 Berlin Film Festival’s Teddy Award for best Lgbtqia+ film at this year’s Berlinale.

Apalow’s drama follows the story of two men, Bambino and Bawa, who meet in Lagos and immediately hit it off but struggle, in a society where homosexuality is illegal and socially taboo, to give into their desires. Produced by Polymath Pictures, All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White is being sold worldwide by Nigeria’s 2o9ine Films.

The Teddy for best documentary of the 2023 Berlinale went to Orlando, My Political Biography, which screened in Berlin’s Enocunters section. The cinematic debut of acclaimed trans writer Paul B. Preciado, author of Countersexual Manifesto, and Pornotopia, the film is a sort-of retelling of Virginia Woolf’s 1928 classic novel Orlando: A Biography,...

Italy’s Coccinelle Film Sales has acquired world rights to Nigerian director Babatunde Apalowo’s gay-themed drama “All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White,” ahead of the film’s Berlin Film Festival launch.

“All the Colours” is the feature film debut of Apalowo, who was born in Ogbagi-Akoko, Nigeria, and is U.K.-based. Pic is world premiering in Berlin’s Panorama section. Apalowo also wrote and produced the restrained and tender drama about two men named Bambino and Bawa who meet in Lagos during a photography competition and immediately hit it off. During long trips exploring the city they develop a deep affection for each other. But in a society which considers homosexuality taboo, they feel the pressure of social norms.

Five years ago, the Nigerian government signed the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act, which essentially bans gay relationships.

Coccinelle, which is run by sales agent Francesca Breccia,...