My Father's Shadow

My Father’s Shadow is a gem, a deeply felt memory piece and vibrant portrait of Nigeria in 1993.

As the audience is taken in by this intimate and well-observed drama, the rug gets pulled from beneath them by revealing the violence and strife that was simmering underneath. It’s a trick so devastating that it completely upends the movie, elevating it into a deeply humanist narrative.

This is an enchanting film. At every moment, one feels spellbound by its earnest aims and its heartwarming excursions.

My Father’s Shadow resolves as a movie less about a father than it is about the absence of one — a vibrant, deeply felt love letter to Lagos, written in blood.

The unusual power of “My Father’s Shadow,” for all its subjectivity, comes from its elements of impersonality—from the seemingly scriptural authority with which memory is sublimated into myths and relationships into destinies.

The action meanders, but there’s always an undercurrent of dread. And while many of the episodes are down to earth, the filmmaking lets things flow from image to image with lines that search for deeper truths but don’t advance the plot.

Hope and fear are inextricably bound in Akinola Davies Jr.’s semi-autobiographical film.