Probably the favourite part of filmmaking to Akinola Davies Jr. is the fact it’s collaborative. The filmmaker had just premiered his film rituals: unionblack at Somerset House when METAL caught up with him. Rituals is about normalising the daily mundanities of black life across the UK. “Especially from communities that don’t necessarily get enough screen time,” he said, “Blackness is not a monolith, and the film honours simple moments as opposed to intricacies perpetually being projected onto the black British form.”
“I would say it was very serendipitous,” he said when asked how he shifted to the video form after studying journalism and a brief stint in media houses. “I had worked in loads of service jobs, and I wanted to try and express myself in a way,” he explained further, “I did a very short course and found the idea of being part of a team and creating something extremely fulfilling.” And what great luck for us that he did. With his My Father’s Shadow screening at the prestigious London Film Festival on 17th and 18th October (it’s already sold out), which had its world premiere at Un Certain Regard at Cannes this year, Akinola Davies is the director to know.
When did you first pick up a camera?
I have zero recollection. What I do remember is my uncle shooting with film in our living room downstairs, when I was growing up in Nigeria. I just remember being in awe of what was happening, it was very memorable for me. I don’t remember when I first picked up a camera anymore – in my uni days, I think.
Growing up in Lagos, Nigeria and then the US, do you think your upbringing in various places shapes the narratives you focus on?
It’s this idea of being an outsider — that you don’t really fit anywhere specifically but you can claim a small part of the culture you’re exposed to. I try to reinterpret ideas, customs and traditions from the perspective of feeling alienated within one’s own community. It’s probably the biggest influence. It means you’re trying to ascribe yourself with a particular identity and then realising you don’t have to.
What are the stories you wish to tell?
I’m just interested in the psychology of what it means to be a black man, what it means to be alienated within your community and challenge institutions — spiritual, medical or emotional. I don’t think these have been explored with enough nuance. The reason why I started making images was because I wasn’t seeing my community reflected in moving image and music videos and films showed a specific trope of black masculinity and often enough coming from other communities made that a self-fulfilling prophecy. Not to say, my work is really comprehensive at doing so but that’s more what I'm interested in is this idea of just balancing things.
How do you develop these stories?
We’re working, we’re researching – it’s meeting real people and trying to draw from their lived experience. I think there’s nothing more fascinating than that, as we are so self-centred as a species.
How did you cast the characters in My Father’s Shadow, particularly the two brothers, who are delightful.
We tried to do things a little outside of the norm for Nigeria, which is looking at self-tapes, going to schools and going to churches and going to youth centres, trying to find the boys. Ultimately, we found them on these really bizarre self-tapes that they made. They just had a lot of charisma, which is what you’re looking for when casting. They were real brothers – I didn’t know that at the time. Their mother is an actress as well, Happiness Egbo, so they had a good handbook.
Do you have memorable moments while filming?
The first day and the last day was pretty memorable on My Father’s Shadow because this was a dream that I had never thought was possible a few years ago in terms of making a feature film. The whole crew on the last day was in tears because of what we've done together. In terms of rituals, it was just the honour of people allowing me into their lives. I mean, I got to shoot a home birth in Birmingham and seeing a baby born coming into the world I don't think is an experience I will ever get again, unless somehow that becomes my niche as a filmmaker! It’s been a privilege for people to enable us in their lives for a period of time, and I don't take any of that for granted.
Who do you look up to in filmmaking?
I would say my North Star is Ousmane Sembène, the brilliant Senegalese filmmaker. I take a lot of inspiration from American director Ava DuVernay. She started fairly late as a director after working in distribution or PR for a while. I can't remember which one. There’s also Hirokazu Koreeda. I really love Mexican director Lila Alvilés, she's pretty incredible. Spielberg was my favourite director growing up. More locally in Nigeria, Genevieve Nnaji is very special. Of course, my contemporaries Mati Diop, Arie Esiri and Chuko Esiri who did Eyimofe (This Is My Desire) – all those guys.
You’ve worked in Boiler Room for a while, and your brother also works in music – your Somerset House showcase also has music as a very significant component. How important would you say music is to your work?
Music is pretty important as music it is a very good catalyst of translating a feeling – not just music, but also sound design. I was well supported by Kwake Bass and his team – who's my musical director for rituals. We tried to have silences as it can be an important tool to leverage emotion. In the show, we removed the original composition and musicians played live, we had given them the original score so they could reinterpret it and play similar melodies but also play with it. I don't like telling artists what to do beyond encouraging them to bring their best. The producer Nick Hayes and Sarah Lorentzen were very crucial in getting musicians, but I think fundamentally, it's just about working with people who are cornerstones of their community when it comes to comes to making music, as we speak a common language. The hope of the projects is to be a lot larger than who we are and what we're about. It's supposed to serve a community.
Who is on your playlist right now?
I’m gonna look at my playlist. I'm listening to K1 De Ultimate. There’s a lot of Gqom, which is a genre of South African dance music and these producers We Dem Boyz are my favourite. Some Jim Legxacy as well.
Who has become your creative community in London today?
London is sort of swings and roundabouts. It can be quite unforgiving being a creative in London, but I think what the city has is a creative community, that is very supportive. Directors are very supportive of each other, and I think other disciplines are equally quite supportive. I know that as I had a short-lived career as a DJ, I used to do parties in club nights, I worked in fashion for a bit. So, my community is quite broad. I've never been beholden to one group. I'm an artist-at-residence at Somerset house, and there's a brilliant community of artists there. There's loads of us out here just trying to make work. And I think city ebbs and flows in that being a possibility. It is at times trickier to be a creative, but I also think it encourages people to be more creative when you have to think of realistic ways to create with very limited resources.
Have you heard from audiences in Lagos and Nigeria about your work?
I get messaged almost on a daily basis, from young Nigerians or young British filmmakers or from all over the globe really, depending on where the work has been, lot of resilience seems to be projected onto the work. But again, my work is in service of people and isn’t really about me. It's not about me being this auteur, I don’t subscribe to that definition. I just think I’m in service to the work, I want to try and create things that enable people to just sit a lot more comfortably in the bodies that they are in and maybe question the aspects of their privilege and understand a little more about themselves. I like my work to be very accessible, just requiring you to have feelings.
