Premiering in Un Certain Regard at Cannes Film Festival, Akinola Davies Jr.’s acclaimed debut My Father’s Shadow went on to pick up a Special Mention for the Caméra d’Or and, recently, Best Director at the British Independent Film Awards and Breakthrough Director and Outstanding Lead Performance at the Gotham Awards. After an awards-qualifying run last month, MUBI will release U.K.’s Oscar entry on February 6 and now the first trailer has arrived.
Here’s the synopsis: “A semi-autobiographical tale set over the course of a single day in the Nigerian capital Lagos during the 1993 Nigerian election crisis. The story follows a father, estranged from his two young sons, as they travel through the massive city while political unrest threatens their journey home.”
Alistair Ryder said in his review, “Telling an authentic, politically charged story from a child’s perspective can be a challenge. For tales set during a period like WWII, a lifelong combination of school lessons and pop culture ensures an instant familiarity for audiences, allowing films to be less forthcoming with expository context and feel more lived-in for lacking any soundbites discussing whatever Hitler was up to at that specific moment. Naturally, the school history syllabus across the western world only goes so far––I could count the number of non-WWII topics covered throughout my five years of British high school history on one hand––so filmmakers rarely get the chance to tell a coming-of-age story at a time of political turmoil without also having to treat their audience like their young protagonists. Set following the 1993 Nigerian Presidential election––when votes were still being counted and millions were naively optimistic for a democratic handover in government from an authoritarian leader who had very recently ordered the army to kill scores of protesters––Akinola Davies Jr.’s My Father’s Shadow ceases to feel authentic every time it has to pause and contextualize the fraught political context to its audience. It would be the number-one topic of conversation at this moment, yet every time it comes up, it’s discussed like the people speaking about it are being filled in for the first time.”
See the trailer below.