“I want to make films about my community”: Akinola Davies Jr

Nadia Denton: Given the troubling state of the world that we live in, do you think that filmmakers have a social responsibility in the creative decisions they make? 

Akinola Davies Jr: No two filmmakers are made equally. I think the beauty of being human means we’re able to have a very dynamic range of what we feel is and isn’t our responsibility. I realise how much privilege is afforded to me as a man. I realise how much privilege is afforded to me as a grammar school-educated Black man. I realise how much privilege I have in my body. So being able to acknowledge all those things, I also think I have a responsibility that when I’m given a platform, I should use that for people who don’t have those privileges. To be Pan-African is to start laying foundations and bridges for how we can heal from what we’ve experienced, and how we can show solidarity. That’s what being Pan-African truly means: solidarity with anybody who feels oppressed. That is what Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Marcus Garvey really believed. It’s in their shadows that we all exist. Being able to acknowledge other people’s lived experience is really important.

To create art is a privilege. So that comes with a certain level of responsibility. I believe that whenever you put yourself in a situation for your community you hope that your community carries you on their back when you need it the most.

Much of My Father’s Shadow is characterised by what is not said. What are some of the conversations that you think African fathers and sons need to have which they are not having?

Conversations giving people permission to be vulnerable. There’s always this performance of masculinity that doesn’t equate for emotions, you know? It doesn’t equate how you deal with big emotions, how you deal with disappointment, how you deal with heartbreak, how you deal with anger, how you deal with so many things you’re not taught as a Black man. I think Black masculinity gets painted with a sort of one-dimensional brush. Vulnerability is important because it’s something that unlocks in someone that human aspect that maybe they don’t feel, which is why you can end up weaponising more toxic, patriarchal aspects of masculinity. That’s why I love Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s book We Should All Be Feminists. Reading books like that is what made me understand my place in the world.

Reflecting back on your early childhood, what career aspirations did you have at that tender age?

At, like, eight years old, I was obsessed with architectural miniatures. That’s what I thought being an architect was, making miniatures. So I wanted to be an architect. Subsequently, I realised I wasn’t very good at maths, so architecture probably wasn’t in the pipeline for me. I had an uncle in Nigeria who was the black sheep of the family who would make Nollywood films in our house. I think there was maybe a curiosity about filmmaking, but I wasn’t confident enough to tell anyone that’s what I wanted to do.

So how did your journey to filmmaking begin? 

I assisted other grassroots and music-video filmmakers and basically lived in their shadow for almost six years. I then started making music videos for my friends, who were predominantly trying to break into fashion and music. I made a music video for an experimental British Nigerian artist called Klein. From making that video I started to believe I could actually do this. Around 2016 was when I started believing that filmmaking could be a reality. I love film. I love learning about the industry. I think being thrown in the deep end is important.

I would imagine, in the course of that time, you were avidly watching films and absorbing film culture. What made an impression in terms of the formation of your creative aesthetic?

Commercially, I love Steven Spielberg. He made so many formative films, like E.T. [1982] and Saving Private Ryan [1998] – which was one of my favourite films. Larry Clark’s Kids [1995] had quite a big impression on me because it was like a side of New York I had never seen before. Films like City of God [2002] and world cinema. I started to seek out work from the Cannes Film Festival. I would go and search what had won and try to find those films. I felt they had a lot more depth to them. They felt a lot more accessible.

How do you work with concepts of sound alongside the visual?

Sound is really important. I think music can be an entry point to reintroducing sonics that people don’t even associate with Blackness in many ways. I think music has such a big part to play because it speaks to people’s nostalgia, their emotions, it speaks to the underscoring rhythm of how people feel and takes them back to things that they probably used to hear. So, for me, I think it’s such a massive tool to be able to exploit for cinema. Country music and gospel are my first love and Black electronic music is my second. Those artists are just literally making sounds, it’s kind of like jazz: impulsive, based around the drum or free form.

I’m curious about your engagement with other art forms. Have the visual arts affected your trajectory as a filmmaker? 

My favourite artist is [the painter] Kerry James Marshall. He talks about the idea of creating your own mythologies. With My Father’s Shadow, that concept was something that really encouraged us. I thought Marshall’s ‘The Histories’ exhibition at the Royal Academy was incredible. It was extremely important to see Black characters experiencing different levels of joy or just mundane life, you know? I think it’s important to humanise the experience, to be immersed in work at that scale, as well; to see, to give yourself permission to dream in the capacity that Marshall presents his work. I think the work is for everyone, but it’s unapologetically Black. And there’s something about that which as a filmmaker is very encouraging because I just want to make films about my community. I could live a lifetime of telling those stories and not even scratch the surface.

What is next for you creatively? What should we expect in terms of content and genres? 

I’m interested in Black spirituality. I want to learn more about Ifá, Santería or voodoo. I think there’s a story that needs to be told in a way that’s also accessible to those among our families who are of the [Christian] evangelical persuasion.