Home Away: Ibitayo Ibikunle’s Cinematic Journey Into Migration

Yinka Olatunbosun

At just 21 minutes, Home Away is a short documentary that lingers long after the credits. Nigerian filmmaker Ibitayo “Tsaint” Ibikunle turns migration, one of the most documented subjects of our time into a deeply personal, cinematic exploration. The result is not simply a film about people, but about place, belonging, and the quiet resilience it takes to build a life in a new country.

The film follows three contributors whose experiences intersect with Ibikunle’s own. Felix arrived in the UK full of hope, only to face rejection and return to Nigeria, where he now runs
a growing fashion business. Victor, a Zimbabwean migrant, has spent decades quietly serving communities through social care, all while grappling with what it means to call Britain home. Agatha, from Malawi, spent fourteen years in the asylum system surviving on five pounds a day while raising her child, before founding an organisation to support women living with HIV.

What binds these stories is how Ibikunle chooses to tell them. He rejects staged setups or sterile talking heads. Instead, each testimony unfolds in a space tied to the contributor’s lived experience: Felix in his almost-empty flat on the day he moves out; Agatha in a park where her child plays; Victor in a green space where he has built years of family memories. These choices give the film an intimacy and honesty that makes it feel less like testimony delivered for the camera and more like life unfolding before it.

Visually, Home Away is striking. Ibikunle, who built his career working on hard-hitting investigative documentaries such as Disciples: The Cult of TB Joshua, adopts a markedly different style here. Gone are the harsh studio lights and clinical setups. Instead, he works with natural light, handheld camerawork, and an eye for stillness. Felix’s face glows softly under practical room lighting; Agatha speaks against the ambient hum of a kid’s park; Victor’s testimony is given space, his long silences held with patience. Behind the scenes,much of the film was shot on a single zoom lens, yet the images have a textured intimacy reminiscent of 35mm cinema. Ibikunle’s expertise in skin tone representation, something he teaches on his YouTube channel is evident: the contributors, all people of colour, are rendered with warmth and dignity. This is documentary as portraiture rather than proof.

Home Away borrows from the language of fiction without losing its documentary integrity. Framing, controlled lighting, poetic inserts, and even moments of slow motion transform testimony into something more lyrical. The opening scene with him walking with a guitar and sitting in an empty grassland sets the tone for a film just not with decorative flourishes but visual metaphors that carry meaning where words cannot. This Intercut reflections from the director himself, filmed in symbolic locations like the shadowed tunnel, place him not as a detached observer but as a fellow traveller in search of belonging.

Sound design is restrained but precise. Ambient noise grounds each contributor in their environment, creating an immersive intimacy. The soundtrack is anchored by Day by Day, a track by Manchester-based Nigerian artist Grumpy. Its quiet refrain of persistence threads through the film, a subtle but powerful reminder of the endurance these stories embody.

If there is a criticism to be made, it is that Home Away risks being too cinematic for documentary purists. The compositions are polished, the framing purposeful and some may bristle at a documentary that looks this considered. Yet Ibikunle wields cinematic tools with restraint. They are not decoration but bridges, collapsing the gap between subject and audience.

At its core, Home Away is more than a documentary. By the end, twenty-one minutes feels far too short. You leave wanting more: more of Felix, Victor, and Agatha; more of Ibikunle’s
voice and vision.

Home Away confirms Ibikunle as one of the most distinctive voices working at the intersection of fiction and non-fiction today. A filmmaker who understands that telling a story
is not just about the words spoken, but the spaces in which they live.