The Story⚡
An eight-year-old girl trails a lizard through the grounds of a Lagos megachurch and glimpses its hidden contradictions, years before two young brothers navigate Lagos with their distant father amid Nigeria’s turbulent 1990s. These moments anchor the early and recent work of British-Nigerian filmmaker Akinola Davies Jr., now paired in a double-bill that traces the start of his distinctive voice.
Tell Me More
Akinola Davies Jr. was born in London to Nigerian parents and raised between the UK, Lagos, and the United States. His films draw from personal experiences of displacement, memory, and the spaces between cultures. Before his feature debut, he worked on music videos and commercials while developing a style rooted in observation, contrast, and the blending of everyday reality with subtle fantastical or heightened elements.
Lizard is his breakthrough short. Co-written with his brother Wale Davies, it follows Juwon, an eight-year-old girl with an unusual ability to sense danger. Removed from Sunday school, she trails an agama lizard and encounters the contrasts and undercurrents around a large Lagos church, its public face and private dealings. The story stems from a real childhood incident in which Davies and his family were robbed after church, though the film adds a layer of perception and folklore that blurs ordinary events with something more intuitive.
Shot in Nigeria under demanding conditions (including heat and large crowd scenes), the film uses careful contrasts in light and movement, a visceral sound design, and a young protagonist placed in expansive, sometimes foreboding spaces. It premiered at Sundance in 2021, winning the Grand Jury Prize for Short Film, the first Nigerian production to do so, and earned a BAFTA nomination for Best Short Film.
My Father’s Shadow (2025), Davies’ feature debut, also co-written with Wale, shifts focus to two brothers, Remi and Akin, who reunite with their father Folarin (played by Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù) during the pivotal 1993 Nigerian presidential election period. The boys leave their village for Lagos, where they navigate the city, their father’s world of work and absence, and the larger uncertainties of a nation on the edge of change. The film draws from family memories and explores fatherhood, masculinity, attention, and the weight of place and time without overt exposition.
It premiered in Un Certain Regard at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, the first Nigerian film in the official selection, receiving a Caméra d’Or Special Mention. It has since earned widespread recognition, including the BAFTA for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director, or Producer (shared with Wale Davies), a British Independent Film Award for Best Director for Akinola, and other accolades such as a Gotham Breakthrough Director win.
Both works share an interest in children’s perspectives, the textures of Lagos and Nigerian life, and the quiet accumulation of moments that shape understanding. Davies has spoken about not drawing strict lines between reality and other ways of seeing, folklore, feeling, and memory, reflecting an approach shaped by African storytelling traditions alongside his own experiences.
The double-bill “A Tender Age: Two by Akinola Davies Jr.” brings these films together, allowing audiences to see the continuity in his filmmaking: precise, grounded observation paired with emotional and atmospheric depth.
In Summary
Through these two films, Akinola Davies Jr. shows a consistent interest in how children perceive the adult world, its contradictions, absences, and quiet intensities, set against the textures of Lagos life. Both Lizard and My Father’s Shadow are now available to stream on MUBI.
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