Lizard

Efie Gallery and Bootleg Griot present a monthly film programme in the Rekord Gallery tracing the intertwined histories of African and Arab liberation cinema. Through a carefully considered selection of films, the series reflects on how sound and image have shaped political consciousness, cultural memory, and diasporic imagination across continents.

Lizard (2020 · Directed by Akinola Davies Jr.)

About the film

Set in Lagos, Lizard follows a young girl navigating the fragile terrain between childhood innocence and the unsettling realities of the adult world. Through a series of intimate, quietly disorienting encounters, the film unfolds as a meditation on memory, perception, and the moment when certainty begins to fracture.

With a visual language that is both restrained and deeply evocative, Davies crafts a coming-of-age narrative that resists linearity, instead privileging atmosphere, sensation, and the porous boundary between the seen and the felt. In doing so, Lizard offers a nuanced reflection on vulnerability, power, and the subtle violences, both personal and political, that shape one's becoming.