A series of Black French women sit before the camera, answering questions about identity, history, and character — both real and fictive. From this intimate starting point, Dao embarks on a multidirectional journey, sweeping the viewer along through two cultural events featuring Nour (D’Johé Kouadio) and her mother Gloria (Katy Correa): a mourning ceremony in Guinea-Bissau, and a wedding in France. Nour is the French bride, whose rites in Guinea-Bissau mark her first visit to the village of her ancestors.
Director Alain Gomis is equally adept at artifice and realism: he directs professional and non-professional actors so skillfully that the line between being and performing becomes blurred, if not invisible. The mourning ceremony, with its mixture of strict ritual and wild abandon, is a vehicle for catharsis and tribute; the wedding, while more familiar in its outlines, is full of fascinating cultural inflections. Artifice and reality, tradition and modernity, race and gender — they make for an intoxicating mix in this joyful evocation of life.
Supported by
Showcase Series Supported by
Community Partner
Katy Correa, D’johé Kouadio, Samir Guesmi, Mike Etienne, Nicolas Gomis
France/Senegal/
Guinea-Bissau
2026
In French, Wolof, Manjak, and Guinea-Bissau Creole with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
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Credits & Director
Producer
Sylvie Pialat, Benoît Quainon, Toufik Ayadi, Christophe Barral
Screenwriter
Alain Gomis
Cinematography
Céline Bozon, Amath Niane, Mabeye Deme
Editor
Alain Gomis, Fabrice Rouaud, Assetou Koné, Dimitri Ouedraogo, Elizabeth Ndiaye, Moustapha Mbalo Dieng
Production Design
Eliane Lorthiois, Moussa Diene
Original Music
Gaspard Gomis, Space Dukes, Keïta Janota, Cie
Alain Gomis
Alain Gomis is an award-winning Senegalese filmmaker. His debut feature, L’Afrance (2001), won a Silver Leopard at Locarno; Tey (2012) screened in competition at the Berlinale and won a Golden Stallion at FESPACO; Félicité (2017) won the Grand Jury Prize at the Berlinale as well as another Golden Stallion, and was Senegal’s official entry for that year’s Academy Awards; and Rewind & Play (2022) won Best Mid-Length Documentary at HotDocs. In 2018, Gomis founded Dakar’s Yennenga Centre, supporting cinema education and production in West Africa.
Filmography: As a Man (2001); Andalucia (2007); Tey (2012); Félicité (2017)
Photo by Mabeye Deme
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