Ba Oumar Movies

Belgian filmmaker Pierre-Yves Vandeweerd uses a striking visual style to tell the story of political prisoners struggling against years of abuse in this documentary. In the North African nation of Mauritania during the 1980's, a political activist group called FLAM rose up to demand equal rights for the nation's black citizens. However, Mauritania's leadership was not sympathetic to this civil rights movement, and many of the group's leaders were arrested and sent to a fortress in Oulata. Once behind bars, the men were subjected to a variety of tortures over the next several years, with many losing their lives. Director Vandeweerd combines interviews with surviving victims of the Mauritanian pogroms with stylized visuals to create a haunting portrait of men struggling to survive against long odds as well as recreating the hell their lives became. Le Cercle des Noyes (aka Drowning in Oblivion) was screened as part of the 2007 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This Senegalese film is based on the play The Visit by Friedrich Durrenmatt. The Wolof-language film satirizes the influence of Western materialism on traditional Africa as Linguerre (Ami Diakhate), a Senegalese woman, returns to her village after a life in exile. Thirty years earlier, she became pregnant by a local merchant (Mansour Diouf). The man denied her claims that he was the child's father and went further to accuse her of adultery with other men from the village. The woman's life in exile has actually been quite prosperous, while her village is in a state of poverty. Linguerre is wealthy, and is willing to bail the village out of its financial misfortune -- in exchange for the life of the man who betrayed her decades earlier. The film holds a sharply critical view of capitalism and its effect on traditional values. ~ Jonathan E. Laxamana, Rovi