David R. Walker

Archive for the ‘African cinema’ Category

My Father’s Shadow

Director: Akinola Davies Jr

Cast: Sope Dirisu, Godwin Egbo, Chibuke Marvellous Egbo

Running Time: 1 hour and 34 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

Film Festival: European Film Festival 2026

Language: English

After premiering in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, British Nigerian director Akinola Davies Jr’s impressive debut film My Father’s Shadow is a touching and poignant story of a journey a father takes with his two sons through Lagos, Nigeria in the summer of 1993 on the eve of the announcement that the presidential elections had been nullified resulting in catastrophic political unrest in the country.

What makes My Father’s Shadow unique, is that it is told through the eyes of two young brothers aged 8 and 11, Remi and Akin played respectively by Chibuke Marvellous Egbo and Godwin Egbo.

As the film begins the boys are playing in an impoverished yard with cut out paper action figures, imagining a world of superhero’s and villains. The sudden arrival of their big strong father Folarin expertly played by Sope Dirisu (Mothering Sunday), who decides on a whim to take his sons with him on an arduous journey into downtown Lagos to collect some back pay owed to him.

As Folarin and his sons travel from the Yoruba village into Lagos, their transport is communal, getting rides in taxis with fuel shortages and then with motorbikes until their final arrival in the bustling and vibrant centre of the biggest city in Nigeria.

Remi and Akin are oblivious to the simmering political unrest that is about to occur. The brothers relish the time with their father who visits his work colleague and even eats at a café where he sees his city mistress.

Akinola Davies Jr’s film is filled with foreshadowing images of vultures circling over the city as his camera pans across Lagos encompassing the diversity of religion both Christian and Muslim and also the vibrancy of the city with an authentic African energy.

My Father’s Shadow does employ non-European film techniques whereby every frame is filled with the community and how they relate to each other, avoiding making the individual the focus. However the narrative is slow and the ending of this film will leave viewers pondering whether the journey was imaginary or remembered.

The best scene in the film is on the beach in Lagos when Folarin tells his sons how much he loves them as they recover from swimming in the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a beautifully shot scene which specifically highlights masculine vulnerability and that sometimes tenuous connection between a father and his sons, bordering on honour, humour and hero worship.

A prime example of vital African cinema and made history as the first Nigerian film to be selected for the Cannes Film Festival, My Father’s Shadow is a surreal and significant achievement although the film’s narrative which was co-written with the director’s brother Wale Davies could have been stronger and more specific.

My Father’s Shadow gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and is enjoyable.  Recommended viewing.

Banel & Adama

Director: Ramata-Toulaye Sy

Cast: Khady Mane, Mamadou Diallo, Binta Racine, Moussa Sow

Running time: 87 minutes

Film Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Festival: Durban International Film Festival (DIFF)

Language: Sengalese with English Subtitles

After having its world premiere at the 76^th Festival de Cannes, Sengalese director Ramata-Toulaye Sy ‘s thought provoking film Banel and Adama was chosen as the closing film of the 44^th Durban International Film Festival in July 2023.

Banel and Adama won the Bright Horizon award at the Melbourne International Film Festival and is an incisive look at woman Adama who is supposedly trapped in a patriarchal and remote village in Northern Senegal.

Adama’s future is mapped out for her by the village elders as she is to wed the younger brother of her late husband as per tradition.  However, Banel played by Mamadou Diallo is not happy with her projected future and struggles to adapt to an already mapped out life. As a young woman she struggles to take heed of advice by the village elders even when the village itself is ravaged by drought and lack of rain.

Banel is to inherit the title as village elder and along with all the men, he has to tend to the dwindling livestock in ever worsening conditions with inadequate agricultural means and a meagre population which is teetering on the edge of hunger.

Unlike Western cinema which always focuses on the interplay between hero and villain, director Rama-Toulaye Sy paints a vivid cinematic portrait of a community struggling to survive against nature and of a woman fighting to establish her own self-identity in an environment which is prescribed by traditional Muslim values and a superstition of all things individual.

Banel and Adama is a fascinatingly authentic African film, a lens which is rare for cinema going audiences from a country which has virtually no visibility on the world stage.

Interwoven with some beautifully stark images, Banel and Adama is a symbolic tale of how an individual woman fights against the expectations of her community and a man who has to bow down to local pressure to take up the position of village leader as inherited according to dictated custom.

Debut director Rama-Toulaye Sy imbues her first film with all the traits of traditional African cinema, minimal sets and a stark production design, while skilfully keeping her narrative community driven as her two main characters battle to accept the fates that have been chosen for them by the village elders.