Lagos, Nigeria, June 1993. Political upheaval grips the country as it votes in its first general election since the 1983 military coup. It’s against this backdrop that Akinola Davies Jr set his award-winning debut film My Father’s Shadow. Alongside hopes for a new nation are the trials and tribulations of an ordinary father and his sons – a story of love, loss and absence.
The first Nigerian film ever to be selected in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, My Father's Shadow made a splash when it premiered in the Un Certain Regard section in 2025 – going on to pick up a special mention in the Camera d’Or debut category.
Set in the bustling, sprawling city of Lagos, My Father's Shadow follows a father, Folarin (Sope Disiru), who has some errands to run and is obliged to take his two young sons along.
Hailing from a small village, the boys have never been to Lagos and the film is shot from their perspective as they stare wide-eyed at the hustle and bustle, part afraid, part curious.
For Director Akinola Davies Jr and his brother Wale, who co-wrote the script, it’s a love letter to their father, who they lost at a young age, as well as homage to Lagos, a “complex” and overwhelming city to outsiders.
“Lagos has pockets of absolute beauty and pockets of absolute chaos,” Davies Jr told RFI’s Elisabeth Lequeret during the Cannes festival.
Semi-autobiographical and filmed in Nigerian Pidgin, Yoruba, English, it took nearly a decade to write, with Wale becoming a father himself during the production.
The power behind My Father’s Shadow lies in its ability to align the turbulence of a global and political context with an intimate family sphere, with haunting personal memories overlapping those of a nation’s democratic coming of age.
The action takes place over the space of one day - when the country is eagerly awaiting election results. It is the step needed to take the country from military to civilian rule and the atmosphere is tense and menacing. While we witness images of military personnel on the streets, the anxiety is much closer to home.
For Davies Jr, the film is a fusion of themes, ranging from fatherhood to nationhood and grief. “It's about the unknown and sort of embracing it and going with the day,” he says.
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The soundtrack provides a poetic but unsettling atmosphere – the sense that something bad is just about the happen, like a storm brewing on the horizon, which in many ways it is.
The photography is at times dream-like, colliding suddenly with everyday scenes, media reports and archive footage in which the tension is palpable.
“We were expecting this guy [Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, known as M. K. O. Abiola] to become the new father of the country, and everybody loved him because of his background and what he'd done philanthropically within the country and just structurally business wise,” Davies Jr explains. “So everybody's excited. But, you know, similarly in our film, it's like the dream is never really fulfilled.”
That vote, seen as the fairest in the nation’s history, was annulled by General Ibrahim Babangida, triggering mass, deadly protests.
The children can tell their father is stressed about a number of things, not least about collecting his long-delayed paychecks. To distract them, he takes them to a beach, where they splash around and play around on the sand. In the background is the rusting carcass of a tanker ship, washed up on the shore – an ominous symbol.
At one point, a quote stands out: “Everything is sacrifice. You have to just hope you don’t sacrifice the wrong thing”. Is Folarin thinking of his sons or his country? The message could just as easily be perceived as both a personal and political.
In any case, in My Father’s Shadow, the brothers slow time down, making every moment of one day count as if it’s worth double, to make up for an absence they still feel keenly.
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“What's the most valuable thing? The most valuable thing in life is time. And spending time seeing your children grow up is such a blessing,” Davies Jr says.
The journey from Cannes has been a steady climb into the limelight – culminating in a Bafta award for outstanding debut film in February and appearances at numerous cinema festivals.
For Davies Jr, it has been a unique opportunity to share not only his story, but an African experience – not always seen by international audiences.
“Being African on a global stage has a lot of responsibility. Because there are only a few of us, we try to be custodians of our stories,” he says.
He acknowledges that while Nigeria has its own budding ‘Nollywood’ film industry, there is a new style of cinema breaking out of the old molds.
“Nigeria is a very sort of complex place, but the people are incredible. The people want to work. They want to share their story. They want to meet people and hear about your stories as well.”
He hints that the success of his film may well be the stepping stone to seeing and hearing more young African voices moving forward.
“I think there's just a more of a nuanced conversation to be had because maybe African stories have always been told from a particular perspective, but now there's like a younger generation who want to tell our stories and we want to work with international partners”.
My Father’s Shadow was released in French cinemas on 25 March.
