My Father’s Shadow: Memory, Loss, and Lagos Through the Lens at Cannes

In the Hallowed Halls of Cinema

Once upon a recent spring in Cannes, where red carpets roll out for both dreams and egos, Akinola Davies Jr. found himself basking in the collective gaze of 2,000 cineastes. He wasn’t just collecting applause—he was collecting history. His debut feature, “My Father’s Shadow,” had achieved what Nigerian cinema’s prolific engines had never done before: secure a spot in the festival’s official selection. It turns out, sometimes the underdog brings the bark and the bite.

🦉 Owlyus blinks: "Move over, French New Wave—Naija just RSVP’d."

Davies Jr. confessed to being “overwhelmed and overjoyed”—an emotional cocktail familiar to anyone who’s ever seen their childhood daydreams cosplaying as reality. But Cannes is a tough crowd, and the film didn’t just show up; it was commended by the jury, scattering a trail of firsts from Lagos to La Croisette.

Fathers, Sons, and the Ghosts of '93

“My Father’s Shadow,” co-written with brother Wale Davies, is a cinematic séance. It isn’t just about a father and two sons—or the 1993 Nigerian election, for that matter. It’s about the way loss wraps itself around memory, blurring the line between what happened and what we wish had happened. The film’s patriarch (played by Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù) ferries his sons through post-election Lagos—a city pulsing with hope, heartbreak, and the occasional power outage.

Davies Jr. and his brother lost their father young; the film mines this grief for gold, offering up wish fulfillment with a side of wisdom. “How do you know what is memory and what was told to you?” Davies Jr. mused, forever straddling the tightrope between nostalgia and myth-making.

🦉 Owlyus, feathers ruffled: "Who needs therapy when you have cinema and unresolved generational trauma?"

Lagos: Not Just for Instagram

Filmed on location, “My Father’s Shadow” avoids Lagos’ glossier veneers, instead plunging into the city’s working-class arteries. Shooting in the megacity was akin to daily mountaineering—if the mountains were made of bureaucracy and generator fumes. But the reward was authenticity: no parachuting European crews, no imported sentimentality. The crew’s ethos was simple—leave every location better than found, a rare plot twist in both film and urban planning.

The casting process was similarly Herculean: over 200 hopefuls auditioned before two real-life brothers, Chibuike Marvellous Egbo and Godwin Egbo, stepped into the roles of Aki and Remi. For the actor playing their father, the challenge was to honor both individual and collective fatherhood—a balancing act on masculinity’s fragile scaffolding.

History, Heartbreak, and the Nollywood Pivot

Set against the backdrop of Nigeria’s 1993 election—a hope dashed when military leader Ibrahim Babangida annulled the results—the film foregrounds personal loss but never loses sight of national wounds. Here, the personal and political are conjoined twins, forever wrestling over who gets to tell the story.

Nollywood, long synonymous with melodrama and gun-toting antiheroes, has lately been undergoing a quiet revolution. “My Father’s Shadow” represents the arthouse insurgency: less spectacle, more soul. Its festival run has been a global relay—Toronto, London, Busan, and beyond—garnering awards, nominations, and the occasional existential question about the future of independent cinema in a land beset by piracy and a paucity of theaters.

🦉 Owlyus hoots: "Nigerian cinema: now available in select theaters, pirate bays, and your uncle’s WhatsApp group."

Community, Awards, and the Art of Collective Triumph

Davies Jr. is quick to credit his crew and community. Film, he insists, is never a solitary act of genius, but a group project—one where everyone, from the gaffer to the aunties, deserves a curtain call. The film’s success in the Global South—where audiences are intimately acquainted with hard-won resilience—may be its most fitting accolade.

As the awards pile up (BAFTAs, Gotham, Palm Springs, and more), Davies Jr. can afford a moment’s pride—not just for himself, but for a team and a nation long underestimated. “My Father’s Shadow” isn’t just a film; it’s a memory palace built by many hands, inviting viewers to enter, linger, and perhaps, remember differently.

🦉 Owlyus, wings folded: "Turns out, shadowboxing with the past can light the way for a whole continent."