Med Hondo’s first feature won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival and instantly established the director as a giant of African and world cinema.

A loosely constructed narrative that chronicles the travails of a West African-born accountant who arrives in Paris to pursue his dreams, the film meticulously documents the challenges he encounters, including racial, housing, and employment discrimination. A scathing attack on colonialism, the film is also a shocking exposé of racism, and a brutal and ironic indictment of Western capitalist values.

Notes by David O’Mahony