Plot

After a happy childhood in the countryside, a teenager moves to London, where he must navigate an unfamiliar environment on his road to adulthood.

Femi is a British boy of Nigerian heritage who, after a happy childhood in rural Lincolnshire, moves to inner London to live with his mum. Struggling with the unfamiliar culture and values of his new environment, teenage Femi has to figure out which path to adulthood he wants to take.

THE LAST TREE is director and writer Shola Amoo's semi-autobiographical depiction of his crisis of belonging as a first-generation British-Nigerian. Initially raised in the relative privilege of rural Lincolnshire by a doting foster mother, Femi (Sam Adewunmi) is unexpectedly uprooted by his Nigerian born biological mother and must learn to adjust to her strict, traditional rearing and the urban chaos of London. Femi learns to avoid schoolyard conflict by conforming to the stereotypes embraced by his rabble-rousing peers while escaping conflicting expectations through the music of the Cure and his vivid daydreams of kindred, indigo-haired classmate Tope (Ruthxjiah Bellenea). When the pressures of urban living threaten to undermine Femi's success, his mother decides to return home with him to Nigeria to give her son an opportunity to connect to his roots.—Mae Moreno