At the British Academy Film Awards Baftas on Sunday night, My Fathers Shadow quietly stepped into history. The British-Nigerian drama claimed the prize for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer, with brothers Akinola Davies Jr and Wale Davies taking home one of the ceremonys most closely watched honours.
For a film rooted in Nigerian memory yet shaped by diasporic experience, the win lands with particular resonance. Shot across Nigeria and the UK, My Fathers Shadow has steadily built a reputation as one of the most emotionally precise debut features to emerge from the British-African creative corridor in recent years. Its Bafta recognition formalises what festival audiences and critics have been signalling for months.
Directed by Davies Jr in his feature-length debut and co-written with his brother, the film unfolds against the backdrop of Nigerias fraught 1993 election crisis. It follows two brothers navigating Lagos alongside their troubled father, using a coming-of-age framework to probe larger questions of inheritance, masculinity and national uncertainty. The result is intimate in scale but historically alert, a balance that has become central to the films international appeal.
