Once Upon a Time in Lagos might be an alternative title for this fervent and vividly intense child’s-eye-view movie from debut film-maker Akinola Davies Jr. It’s a transparently personal project and a coming-of-age film in its (traumatised) way, a moving account of how, just for one day, two young boys glimpse the real life and real history of their father who has been mostly absent for much of their lives – and how they come to love and understand him just at the moment when they come to see his flaws and his weaknesses.
It is 1993 in Nigeria, a tense time with the country on the edge of disorder due to the imminent presidential election, the first since a military takeover 10 years previously. In a remote village far from Lagos, two young boys (played by bright-spark newcomers Godwin Chimerie Egbo and Chibuike Marvelous Egbo) are awed at the sudden reappearance of their father, Fola, played by Sope Dirisu, who makes no explanation or apology for having been away for so long on business in Lagos, or for turning up now unannounced. He is a handsome, charismatic, commanding man to whom they make the instant obedient responses “Yes, daddy” and “No, daddy”.
