Canadian Premiere
Tensions rise in the community, days before the little known 1976 Majunga massacre.
Supported by
Community Partner
Soeuf Elbadawi, Hatia Ali, Moindjoumoi Ahmed Assoumani, T. Syldio Cristophe, Habib Cesar Marson
Belgium/France/Qatar
2024
In Comorian, Malagasy and French with English subtitles
Indigenous & Community Access
Credits & Director
Producer
Jérémy van der Haegen, Manon Coubia, Nicolas RinconGille
Screenwriter
Ahamada Hachimiya
Cinematography
Charlotte Michel
Editor
Thibaut Verly
Original Music
Nawal Mlanao
Hachimiya Ahamada
Hachimiya Ahamada studied directing at INSAS, Belgium. She directed her first short fiction film Residence Ylang-Ylang (2008), presented at the Cannes International Critic’s Week in 2008. Later, she made a more intimate film called Ashes of Dreams (2011) which featured a filmed letter addressed to her father. Zanatany (2024) is Hachimiya’s second fiction film. With this project, she continues her work on the trajectories of the Comorian diaspora to which she belongs. Between fiction and observation of reality, she builds a universe whose narrative deepens her relationship to her roots.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Way, My Way
All manner of pilgrims flock to France and Spain to walk the 800 km Camino de Santiago. One such is Bill, a stroppy sexagenarian Australian filmmaker who's determined to do the Camino with minimal prep, a dickey leg, and no firm idea why.
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
After finding her uncle's dead body on the roadside by a brothel, Shula grapples with her Zambian family's sanctification of a monstrous man. This darkly comedic absurdist drama was a prize winner at Cannes for director Rungano Nyoni (I Am Not a Witch).
Resident Orca
Captured in Puget Sound in 1970, killer whale Lolita spent the next half century in a cramped tank in Seaquarium, Miami. The film follows a coalition of Lummi elders, animal lovers and philanthropists on a rescue mission to return her to the ocean.
