Demba

Following his internationally acclaimed debut BAANUM NAFI (2019), writer-director Mamadou Dia takes us on a hallucinatory journey into the mind of Demba, a small-town registrar struggling to shake off the grief of his wife Awa’s passing. “Once you grow up, you’ll see that being bored hurts less than being lonely,” he quietly ponders. To exacerbate his suffering, Demba is suddenly dismissed from his job of 27 years. Working with many of the talented cast and crew from his first feature—cinematographer Sheldon Chau, editor Alan Wu, producer Maba Ba and costume designer Salimata Ndiaye—the filmmaker returns once again to his hometown in Senegal and establishes a rich visual language to capture the vivacity and complexity of the place. Ben Mahmoud Mbow is impeccable in the title role, embodying both the fleeting moments of joy and the air of unspoken sorrow which haunts him like a ghostly dream. Rooted in the daily routines, cosmologies and shared spaces of the close community of Matam, this understated, dreamy portrait finds novel ways to illuminate the incomprehensible—be it with love, grace, sadness or humour. (Hyun Jin Cho) 

In the presence of Mamadou Dia and Maba Ba.

Mamadou Dia: CONTAINED (2015, K), SAMEDI CINEMA (2016, K), BAAMUM NAFI (2019)