Yaaya At: The Film Africa Festival 2013 | L'Afrance

"50 years ago, they said 'n**gas are savages who can play drums.'

Today they say, 'black people have got rhythm.'

I am sick of being black.

I am a Senegalese."

With these words, L'Afrance sets the tone for the unfolding of an emotional journey in search of the answer to that most fundamental of existential questions "who am I?" Director Alain Gomis' debut piece, L'Afrance encapsulates the psycho-pathological struggle of the European migrant through the story of El Hadj, a young, talented student, whose swift fall from grace to grass is as surprising as it is saddening, leading him on a road to self-discovery.

In this gripping drama, a young West African man finds himself wrestling with his dreams and identity. El Hadj Diop (Djolof Mbengue) is a student from Senegal who has almost completed his studies at a university in Paris when he discovers that he has neglected to renew his residency papers. This negligence brings him face to face with the full force of French immigration authorities, who arrest, detain and plan to deport him. Desperate to find a way to stay in France long enough to graduate, El Hadj arranges to purchase forged immigration documents, and takes a job with a construction crew in order to pay for them.

On a personal level, El Hadj is faced with marriage on his return home to his long-term fiancée, Awa. He evades this by choosing to remain in France rather than submit to the immigration laws and ultimately, deportation. He spends his days navigating Senegalese life via the tapes he is sent from home, and negotiating demanding phone calls from his future wife, while also experiencing French life via football matches, wedding parties and police abuse. Cultural conflicts catalyze to lead him to a turning point of violence, and attempted suicide. The film ends with El Hadj post-breakdown back in Senegal, and in an unlikely 360 degree turnaround, informing his father that he wishes to stay in France and teach there instead.

Alain maintains "this is not a film about immigration." Rather, L'Afrance is an attempt to highlight that "identity is not just about nationality." Nonetheless, he adeptly captures the migrant experience of European society, on a multi-layered fabric. From El Hadj's character, representing the best and brightest of youthful Africa, a highly skilled migrant on whose shoulders rest the hopes of entire peoples, to Demba, a hardworking older friend of El Hadj’s, who has lived so long on the fringes of French society that he had become invisible. A fifteen-year exodus from Senegal turned to, some may say self-inflicted, exile. Forever lost to the warm touch of his wife and his son's loving embrace.

We watch as our protagonist, a confident, intelligent young man is reduced to little more than a raving pugilist; a cement carrying barroom brawler. We see his railing struggle against this transformation, where Senegal, black consciousness and fiancée Awa represent the old and familiar; and France, socio-cultural integration and Myriam, his white lover, represent the new and invasive.

Djolof Mbengue pulls off the portrayal of this charismatic eccentric with style. From a dignified confidence reminiscent of past prides of Africa (Sekou Toure, Patrice Lumumba) to a raging madness characteristic of a trapped lion in a desperate fight for freedom, and finally, to a quiet, calm acceptance of the inner knowledge that he is no longer that which he once was. El Hadj neither abandons his prior upbringing completely, nor embraces his new identity entirely. Instead, he morphs into a hybrid; a confluence of cultures: where Western Africa meets Western Europe ...

L'Afrance is raw, real, passionate and potent. It sheds a light not only on the legal and socio-cultural implications of migration in European society, but also on its lasting psychological effects; the feelings of displacement, of disconnect and detachment from what was once El Hadj’s sole source of identity, his Senegalese background, now reduced to little more than fond memories. In an increasingly global society where immigration and expatriation are fast becoming the norm, L'Afrance is relevant and timely in forcing us to ask: ‘as human beings, what constitutes our identity, and in this context, how do we define ourselves?’

Source | Images courtesy of L'acid and Toutleciné. Video courtesy of YouTube.