A young, unnamed Ivorian intellectual returns home after a lengthy spell in France. Failing to reconcile his new-found modernist views with his African traditions, and obsessed with his sexual inhibition, the man becomes haunted by the specter of a knife-brandishing woman threatening to shatter any potential relationships with other women.
Tahar Cheriaa: Under the Shadow of the Baobab documents the career of one of the core fathers of Pan-Africanism and founder of Africa’s first film festival, the Carthage Film Festival. After Tunisian independence, Cheriaa used all his energy to bring the first authentic images of postcolonial Africa to broader audiences. The film depicts Cheriaa’s ideas and projects, with interviews and archival material creating a complete portrait of the man and his fight for both Sub-Saharan African cinema and African cinema as a whole.
French colonists in Africa, several months behind in the news, find themselves at war with their German neighbors. Deciding that they must do their proper duty and fight the Germans, they promptly conscript the local native population. Issuing them boots and rifles, the French attempt to make "proper" soldiers out of the Africans. A young, idealistic French geographer seems to be the only rational person in the town, and he takes over control of the "war" after several bungles on the part of the others.