I’ve been thinking a lot of My Father’s Shadow. Specifically, about it’s Nigerian-ness or lack thereof.

There are a lot of ways to determine the nationality of a film, the most common of which — at least in terms of the Oscars — is where the majority of the crew and funding for the film comes from. Most of the funding of My Father’s Shadow is not Nigerian, and most of the above-the-line crew are not primarily based in Nigeria either.

But that’s not really where I would like to focus.

What I’m thinking about more is who the primary audience of the film is, or is intended to be, and that’s where it gets a bit complicated.

Because I don’t think it’s strictly made for a British or Western audience, given that most of the dialogue is in Nigerian English, which I imagine can be tough for people not from there to understand, and there are sections where the dialogue is Yoruba and with no subtitles (at least in the screening I was at).

But then the way it’s shot — the things it chooses to linger on, for example — are so clearly foreign. It’s an outsider’s gaze of Lagos. Also, I’ve seen comments on Letterboxd from native Yoruba speakers saying that the lead actor’s Yoruba accent isn’t native, which of course would be something that would stand out for a Lagos-living Yoruba-speaking Nigerian audience.

I think the film is for Nigerians in diaspora, which of course are also Nigerian, but does that make the film itself Nigerian?

As a filmmaker who’s also a Nigerian-in-diaspora, it occurred to me that the way I see this film is probably how I’ll see my own films.

I want to make a Nigerian film. In fact, one of my dreams is to make an Arewa film that’ll be in competition in Cannes, Venice, or Berlin. But because I haven’t lived in Nigeria for about two decades, I don’t know if I can say anything interesting for someone who’s lived most of their lives in the North.

It’s the first time its occurred to me that even if I shoot a film in the Hausa language that gets all its money from Nigeria and with an all-Nigerian cast and crew, it would probably still wouldn’t be a Nigerian film because of my point of view.

And that, quite frankly, makes me a bit sad.