‘My Father’s Shadow’ makes history with Bafta Outstanding Debut win

At the British Academy Film Awards (Baftas) on Sunday night, My Father’s 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 ceremony’s 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 Father’s 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 Nigeria’s 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 film’s international appeal.

Accepting the award at London’s Royal Festival Hall, presented by Ethan Hawke, Davies Jr used the moment to foreground the migrant experience that underpins the project’s emotional core. He dedicated the win to immigrant parents who “sacrificed everything” for their children’s futures.

“To all those whose parents migrated, your stories matter more than ever,” he said, framing the film not simply as personal storytelling but as part of a wider diasporic archive being written.

Standing beside him, Wale Davies extended the emotional register of the moment by honouring their late father, Akinola Davies Sr, invoking the film’s central metaphor. “Shadows are proof of light,” he reflected, expressing hope that their work might one day cast a similarly generative influence on others. It was a brief but telling articulation of the film’s thematic spine: memory not as burden alone but as illumination.The Bafta win caps a strong international run for the 2025 drama.

My Father’s Shadow premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival, becoming the first Nigerian film selected for the festival’s Official Selection and earning a Special Mention for the Caméra d’Or. Since then, the film has continued to gather momentum across the awards circuit, including recognition at the British Independent Film Awards and the Gotham Awards. It was also submitted as the UK’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards, though it did not secure a nomination.