Synopsis
Rokhaya, a young filmmaker, returns to her home in Dakar in order to make a film about a local historical figure. Over the course of her research, consisting of interviews with local personalities, discussions with her team, and fictional scenes shot on location, we discover the story of Aline Sitoe Diatta, a heroine of the Senegalese resistance who is considered a high priestess.
A word from Tënk
Somewhere between drama and documentary, investigation and fantasy, Rokhaya Marieme Balde directs herself and mixes up genres in an unusual ode to Aline Sitoé Diatta. We’re taken on a journey through the director's great-great aunt's past, a woman who opposed the French colonists in the early 1940s and, it seems, also had the gift of being able to make rain fall. After being deported to Mali, where she died at the age of 24, Aline Sitoé Diatta’s name became synonymous with anti-colonial resistance in Senegal. This kaleidoscopic and, at times, disconcerting portrait conveys all of the dissenting energy of its main character–who was the same age at the time of her death as the director was when she made this film–but it also conveys the sweetness of the dreams and digressions often harboured by iconic figures.
Lysa Heurtier Manzanares
Filmmaker
