My Father's Shadow

Two young brothers explore Lagos with their estranged father during the 1993 Nigerian election crisis, witnessing both the city's magnitude and their father's daily struggles as political unrest threatens their journey home.

Review from The New York Times

The most significant days from your childhood linger in memory with unusual luminosity, and for the young brothers Akin (Godwin Egbo) and Remi (Chibuike Marvellous Egbo), today is about to be one of those days. It starts out simply enough: a hot, lazy morning at their home in rural Nigeria. They eat cereal, bicker and horse around, amusing themselves while their mother goes to the village. It’s seems like it will be like any other day.

But then their father, Folarin (Sope Dirisu), says he needs to head back to Lagos to pick up his paycheck. He’s rarely home, since he works in the city and spends long stretches of time there, and they’re unhappy that he’s leaving again. On a whim, he decides that his sons will come with him on this trip. Delighted by the unexpected time with their father, they get ready for a day that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

“My Father’s Shadow” is not strictly based on the childhood of its writers, Akinola Davies Jr., for whom this is also his feature directorial debut, and his brother, Wale Davies. But they lost their father when they were young, and the film feels filtered through a fiercely personal layer of love and memory. Set against the backdrop of the contentious Nigerian presidential elections in 1993, and thus a country teetering on the brink of democratic crisis, it unspools like an odyssey for these two boys, who don’t quite understand what’s going on around them. All they know is that their father’s world is much bigger than their own, it often takes him away from them and they fervently wish it did not.

Read the rest of the review from Alissa Wilkinson here...