Where I Belong
2007 · 45m · Canada
Directed by Arinze Eze
Genres: coming-of-age, documentary, family
Tones: contemplative, tender
Born in Canada and raised in Nigeria, engineer Arinze Eze returns to his birthplace after 20 years, starts a new life in the arts, and falls in love with a Canadian woman. His parents' visit forces a reckoning over how his African traditions fit the home he is building.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
This is exactly the kind of earnest identity-negotiation doc that usually puts me to sleep—except Eze doesn't lean into neat reconciliation, he lets the discomfort breathe, which is almost subversive in its refusal to resolve anything for the camera.
A formally precise essay on belonging that works within the documentary tradition of intimate family portraiture while engaging seriously with postcolonial displacement—the kind of 45-minute work that demands the full runtime and rewards the patience.
The real move here is how Eze uses his parents' physical presence in the Canadian domestic space as a visual argument; he never explains the cultural collision, just frames it, and lets the awkward silences and composed shots do the theoretical work.