DJAKARLO

of BRIQUET Arnaud

FRANCE, 2000, 00:52:00

Production : ASIL PRODUCTIONS, C9 TV, CRRAV (Région Nord/Pas-de-Calais), FACE A FACE, PEGASE Productions
Genre : Documentary
Keyword : Africa, Cultural Identity, Sport, Tradition, Travel

Summary :
For three weeks, in five different places over a 2000-km course around Senegal, a travelling team of young wrestlers from Tourcoing (France) went to meet Senegalese wrestlers on the sand of the arenas. DJAKARLO, which means "face to face" in Wolof, tells of that encounter. The film is built like a travel diary, and takes us into the heart of the arenas of traditional wrestling, invites us to the fights and makes us identify with those people fighting frantically, hand-to-hand, to the sound of drums and to the songs of the African bards. But although wrestling is at the heart of this narrative, it appears very quickly that it is only a pretext for something else, for the encounter and the discovery of the other in particular. And we listen with delight to the old men of the village expressing their emotion, we laugh with the young people of Dakar, who promise the French that they will get an awful hammering. The film also tries to unveil certain secrets about that sport, which is the most popular in Senegal. It takes us into courtyards where magic rituals and mystical incantations take place, into an Africa with a long history and a culture that a whole population keeps alive, an Africa that is welcoming and joyful and that shares with its hosts the best it can offer.

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