Indigo Mood Films

The Senegal River forms the national border between Mauritania and Senegal. In 1989, war broke out between these countries, along and around the river. Both sides committed atrocities. Senegalese filmmaker Alassane Diago was just a young child at the time. Now he brings together his “Senegalese and Mauritanian family,” all victims or witnesses of the bloodbath, so they can talk in detail about their traumatic experiences. He wants to find the truth, and to bring about reconciliation. Why did they slaughter each other, and why were so many people “deported”? Was there systemic racism involved, under the white and Arab elite? Was it a case of ethnic cleansing?

The former French colonies in Central and West Africa have been independent since 1960, but most of these countries still use the currency of the former oppressor: the CFA franc. It was linked to the French franc when it was introduced, so the national bank in Paris controlled monetary policy. Now the currency has a fixed exchange rate with the euro. The link with the European currency strongly influences the monetary policy of CFA countries. And that means the value of the CFA franc is defined by political decisions taken elsewhere, rather than by the domestic economy.

The democracy that the first president of Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara, introduced was followed by almost three decades of dictatorship under Blaise Compaoré. With the inauguration of Roch Marc Christian Kaboré in 2015, Burkina Faso finally has a democratically elected president again. According to rapper, poet and activist Serge Bambara, the country is now in a transitional period. Sankara's democratic ideals have received fresh impetus, but what does the hope for a working democracy mean when it has already been systematically destroyed in the past? As 'Smockey', Bambara records socially-conscious rap in line with his political activism. Uncertainty awaits Kaboré's presidency and Smockey monitors it all.