Feature film
Genesis
La Genèse
Cheick Oumar Sissoko · 1999
Synopsis
Three hundred years after the flood, the film brings to the screen chapters 23 to 37 of the Book of Genesis, with an entirely African cast. Esau hates his brother Jacob, who took his birthright; Hamor the Canaanite rules over another clan. The quarrel worsens when Dinah, of Jacob's tribe, is abducted and raped, and Jacob demands the circumcision of the men of the opposing tribe.
Context
Written with Jean-Louis Sagot-Duvauroux and co-produced by Mali and France, the film was photographed by Lionel Cousin and shot around Mount Hombori Tondo and in the desert. Sotigui Kouyaté plays Jacob, the singer Salif Keita Esau, Balla Moussa Keïta Hamor and Fatoumata Diawara Dina. The Harvard Film Archive revived it in 2014, in a tribute to its author, as an epic of cycles of violence and of the conquest of power.
Who it is for
A 102-minute feature film, in subtitled Bambara; knowing the biblical story helps in following the clans.
Prizes and reception
Shown at Cannes in the Un certain regard section in May 1999, the year of its theatrical release.
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