Banel e AdamaAfrican Film Days Munich 2024
Directed by Ramata-Toulaye Sy, Senegal/Mali/France 2023, 87 minutes, feature film, original language with English subtitles. Banel and Adama are a young couple living in a village community in the north of Senegal. Their shared dream of an independent life outside the village, far away from family and social obligations, threatens to shatter when Adama refuses to serve as the village’s future leader and the seasonal rain fails to materialise.
Directed by Ramata-Toulaye Sy, Senegal/Mali/France 2023, 87 minutes, feature film, original language with English subtitles. Banel and Adama are a young couple living in a village community in the north of Senegal. Their shared dream of an independent life outside the village, far away from family and social obligations, threatens to shatter when Adama refuses to serve as the village’s future leader and the seasonal rain fails to materialise.
To avoid calamity, Adama must work in the fields, far away from Banel. While he seems to have given up on the prospect of an independent life together, the passionate and rebellious Banel continues to hold on to the dream.
After its premiere at the Cannes International Film Festival, this visually captivating romantic drama with a cast of first-time actors received the Bright Horizons Award at the Melbourne International Film Festival.
About the director: Ramata-Toulaye Sy was born in Paris to Senegalese parents in the 1980s and studied screenwriting at the La Fémis film school. She worked alongside Atiq Rahimi on the 2019 literary adaptation of Scholastique Mukasonga’s novel Notre-Dame Du Nil, proofreading the script, supporting the casting process and assisting with preparations for the shoot in Rwanda. Banel e Adama is her first feature-length film and follows her debut short film, Astel (2021), about a 13-year-old Fulbe girl in northern Senegal.
