Short film
Kinkeliba et biscuits de mer
Alhamdou Sy · 1998
Synopsis
The effects of the devaluation of the CFA franc are felt even in the home, and fathers left to their own devices each invent a deity to suit themselves. Saer, a worker threatened with dismissal, lets his wife take him to a marabout: to keep his job, he must give a pound of nails to a blind beggar. Ngalla, for his part, owes a chicken to a false beggar. And when a tooth of a comb breaks, Saer's wife makes her husband keep the comb in his hair all day.
Context
The film follows in the line of Djibril Diop Mambéty and Amet Diallo: a writing of rupture and parody, which piles up hyperbolic images, real or dreamed, to speak of daily life after the devaluation of the currency. Twenty-nine minutes on sixteen-millimetre film, with Magaye Niang, Samba Wane and Eddje Diop; the percussion is by Wasis Diop. The Africultures review praised the freedom of tone and the music, but found that the choice of paradoxical images ended up tiring; another review had judged it very successful and amusing.
Who it is for
Twenty-nine minutes, funny and fast. It is best to accept from the start the paradoxical images, which follow one another with no concern for plausibility.
Prizes and reception
Selected for the international competition at the Clermont-Ferrand short film festival in 1999, alongside other African films.