My Father’s Shadow – Interview with Film Director / Co-writer Akinola Davies Jr.

Listen here. The following transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity:

Hello everyone, I am Shaurya Thapa, and this is the Borrowing Tape podcast Behind the Lens. Today I'm joined by the very promising Nigerian-British filmmaker, Akinola Davies Jr., the director behind the moving family drama My Father's Shadow. Akinola's film follows a father and his two sons as they travel to Lagos during the 1993 Nigerian presidential election.

Firstly, congratulations, Akinola, and welcome to the show. Your film is finally out in UK cinemas and worldwide. You premiered this film at Cannes last year, won an award there, and now the audience can finally watch it. How does it feel?

It feels incredible. It's quite surreal. We had an incredible festival run and now I'm really proud that the film is in cinema so audiences are going to get an opportunity to see it, because every filmmaker's dream is to have a theatrical release so I'm just really excited for the fact that people get to see it in the cinema, get to see it together, get to commune together. And yeah, it's a dream come true to be honest.

The film's story is about two brothers reconnecting with their dad, who is a loving dad, but because of his work, he can't always spend time with them. What's interesting is that the screenplay is written by your brother, Wale Davies. How was the experience collaborating with your brother for a film that feels so personal, and it's about brotherhood?

I mean, it was great. My brother and I are really close. I used to idolize him. Maybe I still idolize him a little bit. Someone I've always looked up to. Has always been really encouraging. So any opportunity for us to spend time together is something I love doing, and working on this film together has been a journey for both of us. It's brought us closer together. I just think he sees life from a very different perspective, and we're both really respecting of those perspectives. It's been really nurturing. And life is very delicate, and it's not promised, it's not guaranteed. Having a sibling that you really love sharing the moment with is a dream come true.

When did you decide to make this film? How did the project start, and why the particular setting, the 1993 presidential elections?

So my brother sent me the script a long time ago, and as a short film, I had a big emotional reaction to it. And then fast forward a few years, we made a short film called Lizard, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. After that, we knew that we might get an opportunity to make a film. And being black filmmakers, we assume that if we only get one opportunity, we want to make something that's quite personal. So I asked my brother if he would let me develop the short film into a long-form idea, and then we started making it together. It's been a few years in the making, but like a really incredible period. We have loads of incredible producers, development teams, and loads of researchers who really helped.

The second part of your question, why this period, we were the same age as the characters in the film in 93. So we lived through that election crisis. We remember the hopes and dreams of our mother's generation, and how, as quickly as those hopes and dreams came with this maverick politician, who everybody was excited to become the father of a country, just as quickly it went away when the military dictatorship canceled that election. We realized on the one hand, we're telling a story of father and sons on a micro level. But on the other hand, we're telling a story of nationhood, and a sort of statesman. That gave us a lot more attention to what was a very loving, familial story. Those two things balance each other out.

As you mentioned earlier, you directed Lizard, you directed short films, worked on TV shows, and now shifting from those formats to a feature film of your own. Was it overwhelming, or was it challenging in any way?

Making a film in any format is extremely challenging. Long form is more of an endurance run. It's hard work. It takes a lot of trust in your team and in everybody you work with. But it's kind of similar. It's a similar language with different dialects. You just have to trust people and not spread yourself too thin, and just trust the process. With short form, there are quicker results. With long form, it's just a longer process, and you just have to be very focused on what you're doing and realize that, however long it takes, is what the film actually needs. I do love the long form, because it allows you to be more of an artist. It allows you to bring more ideas, different thoughts, patterns, and ways of thinking a little bit unorthodox. I really love it, but all forms for me; I just love making films in any format, any capacity.

Can we talk a bit about the performances because, of course, I've seen Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù in His House and in Gangs of London. He's great as the father in My Father's Shadow. Then you have these newcomers, these two kids. Can you tell me, run me through the casting process for both Ṣọpẹ́ and the child actors?

Sure. For Ṣọpẹ́, we made a list of actors we wanted to see, and they needed to be a certain criterion profile, maybe a bit younger, a bit less well-known, having a bit of a physical stature, but also being able to play a soft, vulnerable dad. The moment we saw Ṣọpẹ́, we were all in agreement. I met him in person, and I just realized what a wonderful and empathetic person he is. He did a read for us, and after the read, we were all pretty convinced, and he was the biggest part of the puzzle.

For the boys, it was slightly different because we went to Nigeria, maybe three months before we started shooting. We went far and wide: schools, boarding schools, acting schools, churches, community groups, and then self-tapes, and we found the boys. We did a two-day workshop a month before we started shooting. We found the boys with our casting directors, local Lala and Shaheen Baig, and just worked with them around this idea of play. We had acting coaches come and work with them as well, which is really important. And then I also have to say, the boys were really good because their mother is a screenwriter and an actor, so they really remember dialogue. But equally, the rest of our cast in Nollywood in the Nigerian film industry are stacked. Everybody in every scene of our film is a lead in the Nigerian film. We really just got the best. The best, not the best in terms of massive talent, but the best people for the roles. We got people who really embodied those roles. And those guys are all, a lot of them have been in films that have gone to film festivals across the world, but are also just like household names in Nigeria. So it was an opportunity to reimagine them in an arthouse film.

Talking about Nigeria, for me, some of the most emotional and moving moments are the ones that didn't even have dialogue, like the journey to Lagos, like the dad and the kids, and them having these serene moments on a beach in an abandoned amusement park and stuff like that. Now, I'll be honest, for a non-Nigerian like me, the image of Lagos that is fed to me, the stereotypical image is that, oh, it's a big bustling city with a lot of traffic. Your film does capture that hustling-bustling nature as well. But there's also this other, this serene, this picturesque side of Lagos. Can you just run me through your filming experience in Lagos and the rest of the Nigerian location?

Sure. I love that you asked this question because my brother and I have been working in Nigeria for over a decade. We have a service company, and the reason why we started this service company is to return a certain level of dignity and hope to the people who work in Nigeria to encourage them to see themselves as artists, to encourage them to have ownership in the work they're creating. For us, working with local communities and not shutting them out, pouring into Nigeria and not extracting from it, really gave us a lot of access in the way we could shoot and to graph Lagos as a character, because it's a very unique place. It can be calm one moment and completely chaotic the next moment, and it was really important for us to capture this. It was just really important. I have a very romantic view of Lagos, and even though it is fast and bustling, the people are always the most important resource anywhere. It was really important for us to show the people, show their faces, show them with a certain level of dignity, and also just show that even and try and move away from stereotypical portrayals of Nigeria and Lagos and move to something that humanized a lot of what it means to be from Lagos and or Nigerian.

We were really intentional about that and also showing it from a child's perspective; leaning into nature and animals and creatures and the sort of supernatural aspects were things we were really intentional about trying to capture. Also, shooting on 16 millimeter was an important process for us because it allowed us as a crew to be a lot more tactile and spend more time with each other, and how we wanted to be, and enjoy what we were doing. But even more importantly, it's really important to show Nigeria to show the cast and the crew their work and Nigeria and Lagos on the most beautiful format because I think we really deserve it, and for the rest of the world to see what Lagos is really like on the most beautiful format.

As you have previously also said that, My Father's Shadow is very much a Nollywood film, as any other Nigerian film, like it might be from the arthouse strand of Nollywood, but it still is Nollywood. When the film premiered last year at Cannes, it was the first Nigerian film, I believe, to be a part of the festival's official selection.

Correct.

Now, I'm sure that moment would have made you feel some sense of pride, but also it begs the question, I don't know if you had the question, why did it take so long for a global stage, or a global film festival like Cannes, to recognize Nigerian cinema now? And so my question is like, with these global awards or these Western film festivals, what do you think are the challenges when it comes to them representing cinema from Nigeria and the rest of Africa?

Good question. I mean, film inherently is about international collaborations. That's where I start. That's the strength of our film, the fact that we're a British Nigerian film. We are part of Nollywood. We are part of the Nollywood family tree in the art house section. I would also say that it's that international collaboration that's really catapulted our film to where it is. Film festivals; Nollywood films have won at Sundance before us, Mami Wata won at Sundance, Eyimofe premiered in Berlinale, it premiered at Sundance, and it won at Blackstar in America. All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White premiered at Berlinale. So I do think Nigerian films have been creating more of a relationship with film festivals. The more international collaborations they are, the more likely you are to get people to see your film and be quite invested. Nollywood's incredible, but Nollywood tries to serve Nigeria first and foremost, whereas having an international lens and partnerships can help get the films out in more festivals. There needs to be a curiosity on both sides. Curiosity from the festivals to try and create a dialogue with what's happening on the ground in Nigeria. More international collaborations with those films to try and get them to film festivals. Because I'm very privileged, I'm British Nigerian, so I have a dual nationality. But for Nigerians, it's very difficult to leave Nigeria with a Nigerian passport to get visas to work in the rest of the world. So there could be more festivals, more labs, more outreach, more satellite programs in Nigeria and across Africa in general to try and engage more of those stories. But, we're getting there. It's going to take a little bit of time. Nothing happens overnight. We are getting there. You never want to be the first for anything, but I'm happy for our film to be an ambassador in that light and also shine a light on the amount of talent that's coming out of Nigeria.

So, my last question to you is: your film came out in the UK last week. It's got a rave response. You're also up for a BAFTA for Outstanding Debut. My bets on you, but let's see, fingers crossed. But that's the response in the UK. But how has the response been in Nigeria so far with your film?

There's been an overwhelming response in Nigeria. People have really been surprised by the film in a very emotional way. Maybe there was an expectation of it being something stereotypical, but we've managed to hit a nerve and encourage people to have generational conversations. We need to do another run and get the film more access in Nigeria, but it's been very welcome. It's been very acclaimed. The Nigerian audience has been very emotional with the film because it's caused a generational conversation. We hope that we can continue to foster that conversation and continue to have dialogue and intergenerational dialogue at that.

Thank you for your time, Akinola. I watched it twice, but I might watch it a third time when it comes out on MUBI.

Please do.

Congratulations again, Akinola, for the response to this film is getting.

Thank you so much. Shaurya, I appreciate you, man.

Thank you. 

My Father's Shadow is showing in theaters.