Banel & Adama (12A)

Senegal | 2023 | 87’ | 12A | Ramata-Toulaye Sy | Khady Mane, Mamadou Diallo

Banel and Adama are fiercely in love. Seeking a home of their own together, they have decided to forge a life apart from their suffocating families but moving out of the village will mean Adama giving up his blood duty as future Chief, which upsets the council. The community eagerly awaits the change of the season to make the land fertile again, but the rain does not come. As things become more desperate, the council blames the couple. An intimate and strikingly beautiful fable about the emotional and practical impacts of climate change upon the passions of humans. This first feature, only the second ever from a Black woman to compete at Cannes in it’s 76 year history, is brilliantly performed by a non-professional cast and shot on location in Senegal in 2022.