Ngor, l'esprit des lieux

An investigation and reflection on the figure of the Senegalese poet and politician Léopold Sédar Senghor. The filmmaker collects his memories, explores his own memory and that of his family to write a “letter” to Léopold Sédar Senghor the poet, the academician, but also the former head of state of Senegal. Words and images are addressed to the ancestor, the grandfather in the African sense of the term, the one to whom we can tell everything, the most secret words, the most sincere confidences like the most biting pikes. , provided you know how to respect the codes that allow this game of truth.

A now-rich woman returns to her poor desert hometown to propose a deal to the populace: her fortune, in exchange for the death of the man who years earlier abandoned her and left her with his child.

The film tells the tale of Iala, whose authority over his two sons, Raul and Bedan, is shaken. Raul has left to study in a seminary in the big city, where unknown to anyone, he has joined the liberation movement. Meanwhile, younger son, Bedan is rebelling against every possible tradition, even eyeing his father's young bride-to-be.

A team of friends recover heavy metal drums used to transport tar. After having cleaned out the drums with intense heat, they work industriously to make metal plates which, when cut and assembled, will finally become impressive trunks.

Every morning, Amadou catches small fishes in the lake near Dakar. He puts them into thrown-away bottles to make aquariums.

The Bamako Express takes more than 36 hours to connect Dakar to Bamako, about 1200 kilometers. During this crossing from West to East, multiple images of the African continent, legendary places, great rivers, arid landscapes, pass before the eyes of travellers, while the train itself appears as the center of incessant activity: cohabitation between Malians and Senegalese who live, sleep and trade together.

In Africa, small jobs survive as resistance to the invasion of consumer goods. In compiling five shorts directed by the Senegalese documentary filmmaker, the film details the stages of making handicrafts from garbage dumped at landfills.

Rwanda For Memory (Rwanda pour mémoire) is a 2003 documentary film about the Rwandan Genocide. Facing up to the scars left by the genocide, Samba Felix N’Diaye manages to find just the right sense of distance to film the inexpressible while nevertheless communicating a message of hope.