‘My Father's Shadow' Review: First-Ever Nigerian Film at Cannes Is an Elegant and Stirring Ode to Lagos

Yahoo

20-05-2025

Akinola Davies Jr.'s gorgeous debut My Father's Shadow takes place during a consequential day in Nigerian politics. It's June 12, 1993, and the country is holding its first election since a coup in the early 80s. One president represents a new hope for the postcolonial nation, while the other would maintain the incumbent military rule. While the frenzied, anxious energy of history in the making permeates the air, two young boys attempt to stave off boredom.
For Akin (Godwin Chimerie Egbo) and Remi (Chibuike Marvellous Egbo), brothers living on the outskirts of Lagos, this day, at first, feels like any other. When we meet the brothers, they are lounging in front of their home, bickering about sharing toys and trying to keep cool in the punishing heat.
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There is a familiar lyricism to the way that Davies Jr., working with cinematographer Jermaine Edwards, opens his film. The shots are intimate and lean into the poetry of a child's perspective, in the vein of Raven Jackson's All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt and the early part of RaMell Ross' Nickel Boys. Like these directors, Davies Jr. tailors the impressionistic style of older Black filmmakers (think Julie Dash, Arthur Jafa, Charles Burnett) to his own sensibilities. The persistent buzz of flies, the faint sound of wind through leaves and the coos of animals in the distance also help set the stage for this delicate story.
It's not until the boys go inside the house, where they happen upon their father Folarian, an emotionally distant and imposing figure played finely by Sopé Dirisu (Slow Horses), that their day takes a dramatic turn. He interrogates the boys about a missing watch. They are frozen by his presence, as if they have just seen a ghost.
Premiering at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard sidebar, My Father's Shadow chronicles an unexpected adventure Folarian takes with Akin and Remi. The film — which is, embarrassingly, the first one from Nigeria to ever play at the festival — is a semi-autobiographical tale written by Davies Jr. and his brother Wale Davies about experiences with their father, who died when they were young.
Davies Jr. never loses sight of the project's intimacy. My Father's Shadow coaxes viewers into Akin and Remi's world from the first frame, proceeding to offer a heartbreaking reflection on father-son relationships and a nation on the cusp of change. The film has a loose relationship to linearity and an oblique narrative (much like Ramata-Toulaye Sy's Banel & Adama, which premiered at Cannes a few years ago) that might be trying for some viewers. But for willing participants, Davies Jr. offers an arresting, impressionistic portrait of Lagos.
After some convincing, Folarian decides to take his sons to Lagos for the day, using it as an opportunity to forge a stronger emotional connection. They board a danfo — an informal network of mini-buses — which introduces the boys to new sights and sounds. Vibrant personalities aboard the bus and later in Lagos replace the muggy atmosphere of their rural home, the low hum of passengers gossiping and rapidly exchanging political opinions supplanting the buzz of insects as a sonic backdrop. Through these conversations, Akin and Remi learn about a massacre at Bonny Camp, where the military killed four boys, and the political stakes of this day become clearer.
Lagos also gives Akin and Remi a glimpse into their father's past. Flitting from one corner of the city to the other, they meet his friends, who share tales about their father's days as a bachelor. Davies Jr.' favors a story in flashes, so the narrative can feel patchy at times, leaving viewers wanting more information about the these characters. The best moments of My Father's Shadow are the stolen ones between Folarian and his sons. While there is some overly sentimental exposition in these encounters, they are easy to forgive because of the restrained performances and gentle visuals.
As a Nigerian father caught between obligations to his family and a suggested hidden political life, Folarian struggles with an internal tension that Dirisu brings to the surface with a performance marked by controlled physicality and pained facial expressions. The character tries to advise his sons, but he's also wrestling with his own moral contradictions. Both Chimerie Egbo and Marvellous Egbo, first-timers, give fine performances too, especially when it comes to rendering the capricious moods of children rejecting and seeking approval from the estranged adults in their life.
The day in Lagos initially unfolds at an easygoing speed, punctuated by moments of minor drama. But as evening approaches and the election count draws to a close, Davies Jr.'s film assumes an anxious layer. The city becomes a charged arena as the incumbent preemptively establishes a curfew and soldiers patrol the streets. Folarian worries that he won't be able to get Remi and Akin home, and before he can formulate a plan, violence breaks out.
Deft editing by Omar Guzman Castro eases us into these more jolting moments that echo the somber reflections of the Nigerian writer Chris Abani in his poem 'Mango Chutney,' which he wrote during his days as a political prisoner in the years preceding this historic election:
I never get used to the amount ofblood; bodies drop like so many flowers.
Eyes stare, bright and alive, intoanother world. And death becomes some men.
Others wear it shamefully; others still, defiantly, Their protest choking, suffocating.
My Father's Shadow includes frenzied scenes of the unrest that broke out after the results of that election were annulled by the incumbent, squashing the hope of millions and ushering in another chapter of military rule. Davies Jr. deftly connects the broken promises of the nation state with the fragility of the family at the center of his story. It's in these final scenes of this impressive debut that he displays his full promise as a filmmaker.
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