Lagos Fringe Festival 2025: Ella Chikezie’s “In Her Shoes” Is A Short Course on Autism and Struggles of the African Girl Child 

Storytelling in modern African cinema often requires digging deep into sensitive human conditions and lending voices to underrepresented groups. Doing so, the cinema becomes more of an instrument for conscientization and social campaign than entertainment. A few notable examples of this are Tunde Kelani’s Dazzling Mirage (Nigeria) which draws attention to sickle-cell anaemia; Reabetswe Rangaka’s musical drama The Lucky Specials (South Africa) which creates awareness around tuberculosis; and Toby Schmutzler, Kevin Schmutzler, Apuu Mourine, and Vallentine Chelluget’s Nawi: Dear Future Me (Kenya) which brazenly confronts child marriage. In Her Shoes, a short film directed by Ella Chikezie, follows suit with a story that addresses autism, child marriage, bullying and gender-based bias. The film was screened at the 2025 Lagos Fringe Festival, a multidisciplinary arts festival which was held from 18th-23rd November, 2025.

In Her Shoes stars child actor Darasimi Nadi as Halima, an autistic Muslim girl born into a poor family, who is misunderstood at home and faces bullying in school. Her parents dismiss her love for football as unfeminine. Initially ignorant of her condition, they learn about their child’s autism through a teacher. Since they cannot afford to continually care for her with their limited resources, her mother contemplates outsourcing responsibility by marrying her off. In the end, her father must decide whether or not this life-changing decision is the right one for their daughter.

Autism, broadly known as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurological condition that affects how a person perceives and interacts with the world around them, with symptoms and manifestations of the disorder often differing from person to person. Over the past decade, an estimated 600,000 children are believed to have been affected by the disorder. However, awareness remains low, particularly in low-middle income families. We see this at play in In Her Shoes as it takes the intervention of the school teacher for the parents to have an explanation for their daughter’s struggle with social communication and high levels of sensitivity to her environment. Darasimi Nadi approaches her role with nuance and emotional honesty, speaking just enough and embodying the subtle traits to make her autistic character believable.

With In Her Shoes, Chikezie appears intent on addressing a serious issue without the tonal weight of a sermon. The film carries the thematic density of Nawi but avoids its tendency towards stylistic excess. The ending, perhaps the most potent weapon in the film’s arsenal, is a defiant reminder of the long history of struggle for the equal treatment of the girl child. With Halima’s screaming and dashing out to the public with her ball, the film suggests, particularly to the Nigerian audience, that creating a society that values and humanizes women is only sustainable through loud and constant clamour for reform.