In the early 1920s, Georges Laffont, traumatized by the horrific trench warfare, decides to leave his life behind and travel to West Africa. In the vast territories of Upper Volta he - with the help of Diofo, artist and also survivor of the Great War - try to recruit the villagers as labor for plantations in Ghana. But his adventure leads him to a dead-end, and he comes back to Paris desperate to find his place in the world.
Acting
Romain Duris plays broken masculinity with devastating restraint.
Cinematography
Africa's beauty weaponized against the viewer's conscience.
Director
Emmanuel Courcol
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Director Emmanuel Courcol deliberately mirrors 1920s colonial propaganda aesthetics to force viewers into uncomfortable complicity with Georges's gaze.
Upper Volta was a real French colony where forced labor killed thousands; the film's Ghana plantation scheme references actual colonial 'recruitment' atrocities.
FR
