The Unshod Man

It all started with a dream: "It's time for you to try to explain the mysteries! Find the griot who'll bring you to me, and when you recognize me, circle around me three times, rub me with buttermilk, and let me know what you want. But be careful: don't forget the buttermilk!" That's how I was drawn into the boabab's spirit. It was in the year 2000. The year of the "Sopi". If the boabab was Senegal's emblem, through the tree, I should understand the country.

A trendy taxi-driver races through the streets of Dakar. His passenger is a western, blonde young lady who doesn't seem in the least interested in her surroundings. He tries to catch her attention and breaks the silence by saying: 'I can even see the wind pass by.'

The boisterous and cheerful lives of the residents of Cameroon are barely dented by incursions of supernatural power in this humor-filled rendition of traditional folk tales in modern guise. In the story, a cheerfully naughty girl crosses paths with a witch who has the power to satisfy her curiosity about men by changing her into a young man. She then becomes one of the boy suitors for the amorous attentions of a policeman's daughter. Some of the men have unusual names and even odder magical gifts: one of them has the ability to make a man's genitals disappear when he shakes hands with him.

Dakar, a few days before the feast of Tabaski, a painter is shut away in his studio, working on the theme of the ritual sacrifice of the ram. Sketches are hung on clotheslines to dry. The red paint drips from the drawings like fresh blood. An inscription on the wall: 'Tabaski, who's next?'. Three characters and a sheep revolve around him and reconnect him with reality. This hybrid movie, blending fiction, performance and history, is freely inspired by the painter Iba Ndiaye (1928- 2008) and his work entitled 'Tabaski'. 'Painting is remembering', he said.