My Father’s Shadow will hit Nigerian cinemas on 19th September 2025.
By Vivian Nneka Nwajiaku
My Father’s Shadow, the debut feature by British-Nigerian filmmaker and director of the Sundance-winning short film, Lizard (2020), Akinola Davies Jr., is set to come home to Nigeria where it will have its global theatrical premiere. My Father’s Shadow will hit Nigerian cinemas on 19th September 2025.
My Father’s Shadow is currently making a splash on the international festival circuit, having made history as the first Nigerian feature to be officially selected in the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section, where it had its international premiere and received the prestigious Caméra d’Or Special Mention for Best First Feature. The film has also been officially selected to screen in the Centrepiece section of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) where it will have its North American premiere.
Co-written by Davies Jr. and his brother, Wale Davies, My Father’s Shadow is a semi-autobiographical tale set over the course of a single day in Lagos, during the 1993 Nigerian presidential election crisis. The film follows a father, played by British-Nigerian actor, Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù, estranged from his two young sons (newcomers and real-life siblings, Godwin Chiemerie Egbo and Chibuike Marvellous Egbo), as he travels with them through the big city while political unrest threatens their journey home.
Described as deeply personal by the director, My Father’s Shadow seeks to contribute to the preservation and archiving of Nigerian stories through cinematic artistry. “With no context, the script was sent to me, and I actually cried when I read it”, says Davies Jr. “It’s a testament to the talent and the thriving Nigerian film industry. Point a camera at anything in Lagos, and it’s so cinematic… Africans should be proud of their aesthetics”, he adds.
Shot on 16mm film for poetic visuals and emotional realism, and filmed entirely in Lagos and Ibadan, with over eighty percent of the crew being Nigerian, the film’s international success is particularly significant in a time of ongoing conversations around the preservation of African stories and history through cinema, and the possibility of African stories being told by Africans, even with international collaboration.
My Father’s Shadow is a collaboration between Lagos-based Fatherland Productions and the Irish production house, Element Pictures, as well as MUBI and Crybaby, with funding from BBC Film, the British Film Institute, and partners Fremantle and Electric Theatre Collective. The film is produced by Funmbi Ogunbanwo for Fatherland Productions and Rachel Dargavel for Element Pictures.
The executive producers are Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe for Element Pictures, Eva Yates for BBC Film and Ama Ampadu for the BFI. Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù, Wale Davies and Akinola Davies Jnr. also act as executive producers.
As Afrocritik reported in February, My Father’s Shadow is distributed by MUBI in the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, and Turkey. In West Africa, the film is distributed by FilmOne Entertainment.