Yoole

Credits

Name: Yoole

Country: Senegal

Year of publication: 2011

Format: Digital

Color: color

Language : OF m. dt. UT

Duration: 75 Minuten

Direction: Absa, Moussa Sene

Camera: Absa, Moussa Sene

Editing: Langlois, France

Abstract

“They were 53 angels heading to a pilgrimage to Heaven. In the middle of their journey, they cross an immense ocean. The
albatross was looking at them with his huge wings. One day, late at night, while the moon is smiling, they disappear. They
were the last souls who sacrificed themselves in the middle of the sea. The albatross was smiling from the sky. Years later,
their corpses landed on the shore. Nobody knew who they were. Even not their descendants. This film is a call for respect
to them and their dreams.” It is with these words that director Moussa Sene Absa, one of West Africa’s most important
filmmakers, describes his film Yoole. He was lecturing at a university in the Caribbean when a shipwreck holding the ghostly
freight of 53 corpses of West African refugees was drifting ashore. The boat had started off from Senegal, the director’s
home country, and so he took his camera to return to his roots and find out what had led the victims to leave their country.
The resulting film is an alarming denunciation of oppressive politics, both in Senegal and in Europe, which deprive people
of their prospects and aspirations.

  Trailer