Two brothers from the Nigerian countryside, young Remi and Aki, accompany their father Folarin on a trip to the capital, Lagos. It's June 12, 1993, the day of the presidential elections, and the atmosphere is tense. While waiting to meet with his employer who hasn't paid him for months, Folarin takes his children to the park and the beach. That evening, and still penniless, the three learn on television that the elections have been annulled and witness the outbreak of riots. Remi and Aki then learn that their father is accused of subversive activity and fear for his life. Who is really the man supposed to protect them? And what will become of them at the end of the day?
"It's truly hard to consider My Father's Shadow the feature film of a debut filmmaker. The daily odyssey of two young brothers in Lagos during the 1993 elections by Akinola Davies JR already exudes refined sophistication, sympathetic humanism, a prodigious awareness of the medium, and a promising visual aesthetic.
This has been noticed both in England—it's the horse they're betting on to regain the Best International Feature Film award at the 2026 Oscars—and at Cannes: selected this year in Un Certain Regard, the film received a Special Mention from the Caméra d'Or for Best First Feature. It is also the first Nigerian film admitted to the Cannes Film Festival.
[...]Canute Edwards' desaturated, grainy film photography moves between exoticism and vintage, while Guzmán Castro's found footage montage links the particular to the general, details to context, and close-ups to extreme close-ups. The post-rock soundtrack sets aside Afrobeat percussion to inundate the images with poetic melancholy.
The result is a dazzling film that is at once a coming-of-age story, intimate family drama, political denunciation, and ethnographic document. This time, it even easily forgives a narrative landslide after the climax: a flaw, not a trademark. The result remains harrowingly beautiful". (Davide Maria Zazzini)
Caméra d'Or Special Mention at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival
United Kingdom nominee for Best International Feature Film at the 2026 Oscars
