More Visible Abroad than at Home: Nigeria’s New Art Cinema and the Country that Can’t Screen It

My Father's Shadow (Akinola Davies Jr., 2025). In Lagos last September, a handful of screenings of My Father’s Shadow (2025) played in theaters that were, depending on the night, half empty. A few months earlier, the same film had world premiered at Cannes, in the Un Certain Regard section, and walked away with a special mention for the Caméra d’Or. It was the first Nigerian film to be programmed in the official selection at the festival. Variety called Akinola Davies Jr.’s film miraculous. Rotten Tomatoes aggregated the critical assessment as 98% positive. However, there exists a cultural inv

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