Filmmaker Dika Ofoma discusses his short film A Happy Ending, part of Zikoko's Life 2 series, in which a young woman named Tatiana becomes involved with a wealthy politician client at the spa where she works as a masseuse.
Three actors reportedly turned down the lead role because the character wasn't written as a victim: no sick relative, no coercion, just a woman weighing her options. Ofoma says this revealed how conservative audiences expect suffering as a prerequisite for empathy toward sex workers.
Ifeoma Obinwa eventually took the role, and Ofoma also declined to write the character who introduces Tatiana to sex work as a villain, giving her a backstory that mirrors Tatiana's own.
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