Soumsoum, the Night of the Stars

From Viennale

A teenage girl wanders among the ruins of a recently flooded village, beneath a relentless sun that turns the landscape yellow. Everything is stone and sand, yet the green leaves in the background hold promise. Kellou goes on dates with her boyfriend, wears a swimsuit and unsettles the old men around her. At the same time, she becomes drawn to Aya, an older, wiser woman shunned by the community. Kellou dwells simultaneously in the past and the future. The only uninhabitable time is the present, fraught with hostility at every corner. Assailed by strange visions, she tries to determine whether they are memories or omens. But in SOUMSOUM, LA NUIT DES ASTRES, the primordial world and the society yet to come are one and the same: the prospect of progress is inseparable from an ancient cosmology that predates a rigid, male-dominated monotheism. The film walks a tightrope between ancestry and modernity: a break with traditionalism coexists with a prudently structured narrative. Centuries of African storytelling meet a pop sensibility, filled with easy-listening music and exuberant colours. Aya tells Kellou that there was once a night of madness, love and freedom. Perhaps that vanished world must be reactivated to make a different one possible. (Victor Guimarães)