Africa’s 2025 Cannes Outing, Wins & Misses

The 2025 Cannes Film Festival wrapped up in grand style on March 24 bestowing limited recognition to African cinema. The most notable acknowledgement went to Nigerian-British director Akinola Davies Jnr’s My Father’s Shadow which received an honorable mention in the Camera d’Or category, recognizing his achievement as a debut filmmaker. However, the Camera d’Or award went to The President’s Cake, a film by Iraqi filmmaker Hasan Hadi.

The African continent and its diaspora influences were represented through different film screenings across the Cannes festival days. This included Egyptian filmmaker Morad Mostafa’s Aisha Can’t Fly Away which premièred in the Un Certain Regard category; Nigerian director James Omokwe’s historical fantasy Osamede which premièred at Pavillion Afriques; South African director Oliver Hermanus’s queer-themed story The History of Sound; Nigerian director Izu Ojukwu’s 77: The FESTAC Conspiracy which had an exclusive preview; and French-Tunisian director Erige Sehiri’s Promised Sky (original title as Promis le ciel) which featured in the Un Certain Regard category; among others.

Despite these opportunities, African cinema earned no major awards. The continent’s biggest success was Davies Jnr’s My Father’s Shadow which garnered positive acclaim. However, its impact was less significant compared to the previous year in African cinema when Zambian-Welsh filmmaker Rungano Nyoni won the Un Certain Regard’s Best Director award for her film, On Becoming A Guinea Fowl.

In the just concluded edition, the most prestigious Cannes award, the Palme d’Or and the Grand Prix, went to Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi for It Was Just An Accident and Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier for Sentimental Value respectively. While Africa missed out on these and other big wins, there were moments of respite, particularly from the diaspora—with French-Algerian actress Nadia Melliti bagging the Best Actress Award in Competition for her role as Fatima in The Little Sister (original title as La Petite Dernière), a film by French director of Algerian and Tunisian descent Hafsia Herzi; and Cleo Diára, a Portuguese actress of Cape Verdean descent winning the Best Actress award in the Un Certain Regard section for her performance in Pedro Pinto’s The Laugh and The Knife (original title as O Riso e a Faca).

Should one look beyond the letdowns, this year still passes as one of the finest in Africa’s Cannes history. It restores confidence in Nigerian cinema, Africa’s largest film industry, with the commendable exploit of Akinola Davies Jnr. serving as a prompt for Nigerian filmmakers to embrace more carefully contrived and nuanced narratives. Not only is My Father’s Shadow the first Nigerian film to screen at the Cannes Film Festival, marking a historic moment for the sub-region; it is also set against the backdrop of the country’s sociopolitical history—propagating authentic Nigerian realities to a global, elite audience.