Dublin and London-based production company Element Pictures have receives two awards for a second year running at the 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival.
Best known for Oscar winning feature film Poor Things and TV drama sensation Normal People, the Company received awards for Akinola Davies Jr.’s feature debut, My Father’s Shadow, and Harry Lighton’s feature debut Pillion.
Davies Jr. received the Caméra d’Or Special Mention at Saturday’s Cérémonie du Palmarès for My Father’s Shadow – the first Nigerian film in Official Selection in the festival’s history – and is the first Nigerian Director to be honoured with the award.
Lighton was awarded Best Screenplay during last night’s Un Certain Regard awards ceremony for Pillion, while the film’s canine star ‘Hippo the Dachshund’ also received a special mention, winning the ‘Mutt Moment’ award at the Palm Dog contest.
The win for Akinola Davies Jr.’s My Father’s Shadow and Harry Lighton’s Pillion follows their remarkable world premieres in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival last weekend.
The news marks the fourth prestigious win in two years for Element Pictures, with Jesse Plemons winning ‘Best Actor’ for Kinds of Kindness and Rungano Nyoni winning ‘Best Director’ for On Becoming A Guinea Fowl at the 77th Cannes Film Festival in 2024.
Making history as the first Nigerian film to premiere at Cannes, My Father’s Shadow transcends international borders as Deadline note it to be “a moving universal story”.
My Father’s Shadow is a semi-autobiographical tale set over the course of a single day in the Nigerian capital Lagos during the 1993 Nigerian election crisis. “A thrillingly vital account of the moment when everything changes,” according to a glowing Screen Daily review.
Speaking about the award win, the film’s producer Rachel Dargavel said: “It’s hard to express the pride I’m feeling that My Fathers Shadow has received this accolade, it was made with so much love and energy and with an ambition to create something that resonated on an emotional level with anyone who took the time to watch it.”
“For it to have been received in this way is all at once so validating of the human spirit and all at once mind blowing - the first Nigerian film in official selection and the first Nigerian Director to be honoured with the Caméra d’Or Special Mention – thank you Cannes Film Festival and the Jury for shining a light on our beautiful film, I couldn’t be more proud of Akinola,” Dargavel added.
Pillion tells the story of a timid man (Harry Melling) who is swept off his feet when an enigmatic, impossibly handsome biker (Alexander Skarsgard) takes him on as his submissive. Vanity Fair has describes the film as “a disarmingly poignant drama of discovery”, whilst The Guardian have given the film four stars, remarking that it is “brilliant,” and “what Fifty Shades of Grey could have been”.
Reacting to the Best Screenplay win, Pillion producer Emma Norton said: "This is the most amazing end to a remarkable festival experience. We've all been so blown away by the reception of Pillion and this recognition for Harry's work - from the Un Certain Regard jury - is such an honour. The icing on the cake!"
Both films will be released internationally later this year and in early 2026.
