WHAT WE’RE WATCHING: Fractured nation, fractured family: The politics and precarity of fatherhood in turbulent times

At the European Film Festival South Africa, three films trace how fatherhood bends under social and political collapse, exploring absent fathers, surrogate kinship and fragile belonging across nations.

In 2023, a reported 35.6% of South African children lived with their biological fathers in the same household. A total of 40.3% lived with men who were not their biological fathers.

These figures were published in the third and latest State of South Africa’s Fathers report in 2024. But fathers, and consequently the various states of fatherhood, are not unique to South Africa.

No relationship – no parenting or family dynamic – exists in a vacuum. They brush up against their societal and political environments, and not without collisions.

This reality comes to the fore in the curation of the 2026 European Film Festival South Africa , where the theme is families: “The families we’re born into, the families we create, the histories we carry, and the connections that shape who we become.”

While the programme showcases titles from several countries exploring a range of family structures – from young motherhood in Belgium and children of divorced parents in the Netherlands to a quest for ancestral history in France – three films in particular stand out in their converging conversations around fatherhood in times of social and political strain.

Set in 1990s Nigeria, My Father’s Shadow follows two young brothers (played by real-life siblings Chibuike Marvellous Egbo and Godwin Egbo) over the course of a day spent in Lagos with their estranged father (Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù), who is determined to receive his long-overdue wages from his work supervisor.

Stagnation lingers in the air at the film’s onset. The corners of wooden doorframes have been eaten away by time. Sun streaks are the only presence in a seemingly abandoned house.

Outside, meanwhile, a car stands out of action, decayed nearly as much as the rotten fruit discarded by the trees. Black birds circle in the sky far above the heads of the two boys playing outside. Until, as if by conjuring, their father appears like he’s been home all this time.

Like the encircling black birds, which become an omen throughout the family’s day, the rupture of Nigeria’s 1993 elections trembles beneath the surface of their trip. The downfall of a people’s hope for their nation becomes both a parallel to, and the reason for, the downfall of a family.

Co-written by director Akinola Davies Jnr and his brother Wale Davies, My Father’s Shadow is inspired by their personal experiences of growing up without their father.

“It was important for us to tell this story because we wanted to create something that spoke about generational grief,” Davies Jnr told the European Film Festival South Africa .