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Film Screening:

"Samba Traoré"
(Idrissa Ouédraogo, 1992, 85 min, Burkina Faso/France/Switzerland; in Mooré, Dyula, and French with English subtitles, DCP)

The only surviving accomplice of a gas station robbery gone bad, Samba Traoré flees the scene of the crime with a suitcase full of cash for his native village in rural Burkina Faso. There he attempts to make a fresh start while hiding how he came by his new fortune from those around him. Despite marrying the beautiful Saratou, earning the affection of her ten-year-old son, and opening a bar with his childhood friend, Samba's newfound happiness is put to the test as he struggles to cope with the moral crisis of his crimes.

Shortly after winning the Grand Prix at Cannes with "The Law" ["Tilaï"] in 1990, Burkinabe writer-director Idrissa Ouédraogo followed up that dazzling work with the remarkable "Samba Traoré" (1992), a gripping noir film revolving around the conflicts between city and rural life as well as modernity and tradition, which won him the Silver Bear at the Berlinale. Ouédraogo, who in the 1990s began drawing his humanist realism in closer contact to genre stylism, deploys the film's thriller shape to examine what guilt does to a man once his material life begins to flourish, and how a community comes to share, profit from, and finally question the lie on which that prosperity rests. Ouédraogo's empathetic direction imbues the story with 'extraordinary humanity' (The New York Times), recognizing in Samba the many contradictions of modern life in Burkina Faso.

Considered a masterpiece of West African cinema, "Samba Traoré" was selected for Locarno Heritage Online's Histoire(s) du Cinéma restoration program.

Restored in 4K, the 35mm original image and sound negative were digitized in high quality, digitally restored, and a new color grading was applied by Cinegrell. All the original elements are preserved at the Cinémathèque Suisse on behalf of Waka Films.