Behind the Scenes: Crew stories from the set of My Father’s Shadow
When audiences step into cinemas this September for the Nigerian premiere of My Father’s Shadow, they’ll see a story of memory, fatherhood, and Lagos in 1993. But behind every frame of the groundbreaking film, the first Nigerian feature to screen in Cannes’ Official Selection, are the lives and voices of the people who brought it to life.
In a media chat, producer Funmbi Ogunbanwo, co-writer Wale Davies, and director Akinola Davies Jr. reflect on their most vivid memories from the set, the challenges and triumphs of production, and what it means to finally bring the film home.
For Funmbi Ogunbanwo, producing the film meant balancing vision with the realities of shooting across Lagos and Ibadan. One moment stands out: “A big win for us was filming on Third Mainland Bridge. It was a huge task because the bridge was closed for most of the period while we were filming and then it opened right around when we needed to film. We secured the permits but we weren’t able to close it off for filming so the production, unit, security and directorial departments put together a plan to shoot on the bridge in the midst of traffic. We would drive for a few metres then stop to reset. The unit and security teams would hop out of the vehicles to set up cones and direct traffic around us until we were ready to shoot again. It really was a complex thing to execute well and safely but we had such an incredible team working together to make sure it happened. The final scene in the film looks absolutely stunning.”
Wale Davies traces the film’s journey back to 2015, when it began as an idea for a short film. “It was the first piece of writing that I sent to my brother, and then we discussed fleshing it out and developing it into a feature length film. My writing process is very specific – I need to be completely detached from everything to be able to write properly, and to be able to put myself fully into the writing. We took lots of trips to the Volta Region in Ghana and we would write together by the river. Akinola was very good at keeping me honest and focused. So, not only did we get to escape the everyday franticness of life, but it was also good, as brothers, to take a trip together and spend time working on this.”
When Akinola Davies Jr. first read his brother’s draft, it moved him deeply: “It’s so layered and is the first script that I had read by someone that I knew. It made me weep. I had never conceived of a story about our lives but fictionalised in this way.”
For Akinola, the actual shoot was another revelation. Having filmed in Nigeria for over the course of 12 years, he reflects: “I’ve shot all over Nigeria, North, East and Southwest of Lagos. Shooting in Ibadan was great as we were mainly shooting in this enclosed campus, so it gave the crew an opportunity to familiarise themselves with each other and get to know people. Ibadan served as the starting point, and it gave us a good foundation before travelling elsewhere. It’s such a big accomplishment and I don’t know if the crew knew the importance of what they were doing. Many of these people haven’t done a film like this before, which meant that everybody went above and beyond.”
Life on set carried its own rhythms. Akinola remembers: “There were just so many times off camera that you could hear Ṣọpẹ́ being really generous with the boys. He played with them and encouraged them but could also be quite strict with them. It was very inspiring because it’s not something that I knew he would be able to take on. When casting him for this role, we didn’t know the full entirety of what his responsibilities would be. I was effectively asking him to come and parent these two boys and help them stay calm and not lose his temper. It’s their first time acting – they haven’t done this before. So, he was really great.”
Funmbi recalls: “Every day was a little different depending on where we were. There were days where I spent a lot of time at video village watching the footage. There were days where I was in the production office trying to map out the logistics of where we were going next, but I will say that everyday felt like everyone was working towards a shared purpose. It definitely felt like we were creating something bigger than ourselves.”
The collaboration between local and international crews also left a mark. “For us, pairing international crew with Nigerian-based crew gave us the best of both worlds,” Funmbi explains.
“We’d get a HOD who had worked internationally on films of this scale and standard and who understood how to structure departments, the administrative deliverables required at the end of the film and how to approach long-form filmmaking creatively and administratively. Then we paired them with an experienced home-based crew member who understood the Nigerian market and film industry, what was accessible, creative workarounds for things that weren’t and so on. That makes for a really great team. What it also did was ensure that more of our home-based crew saw the process of working on films of this scale and the standards on and off screen. Now they can carry that expertise into the next production. Overall, the industry benefits from that.”
Cinematographer Jermaine Edwards, an alumnus of the National Film and Television School in London, was central to this partnership. Akinola reflects: “Jermaine is someone who, as a human, I am firmly on board with. We’ve worked together a lot and developed a relationship. It’s been really exciting to watch him grow, and he has done a great job working with these cameras in this heat. It’s not an easy thing to do. He is boundlessly talented.”
And then there was the discovery of Chibuike and Godwin Egbo, the brothers who carried the film. Akinola recalls: “After the first day of workshops, we started breaking them into groups, and Godwin and Chibuike were both very tactile. I didn’t even know they were brothers – their surnames had been tagged incorrectly. I just thought they had really formed a bond. They were really supportive of each other and picked things up really quickly. So, we called them back the next day, which is when we were informed that they were brothers. It’s quite a lot for these two boys to carry the film – it’s asking a lot. But we rehearsed and workshopped, and after that, we knew they would be our leads.”
As the Nigerian premiere approaches, the significance is not lost on the crew. For Wale, He defines the moment to be very special, also stating, “The purpose of storytelling in my life has always been to redefine the way we see ourselves and by extension the way we choose for others to see us. Beyond all the foreign recognition and awards, I’m genuinely most excited about Nigeria (and Africa) getting to see the work. I hope that the themes within the film spark conversations and that it inspires other writers and storytellers to emerge.”
Funmbi is equally proud and excited for audiences to be transported to 90s Nigeria and, specifically, Lagos. She elaborates: “Nigerians will be the first to watch this film widely in cinemas. Our audiences will enjoy seeing the rich tapestry of Lagos and Nigeria captured with a breathtaking cinematic finish. They will see our people and language, the rhythm and the sound of Lagos – the size of Lagos. I’m so excited to see them follow these boys and their father on this nostalgic journey.”
_—_
#FeaturedPost
