The Pirogue
Release Date: January 23, 2013 (NY)
Distributor: Artmattan Productions
Director: Moussa Touré
Producers: Adrien Magne, Éric Névé, Alexandra Swenden
Screenwriter: Éric Névé, Abasse Ndione, David Bouchet
Cast: Bassirou Diakhate, Moctar Diop, Souleymane Seye Ndiaye,
Language: French and Wolof with English Subtitles
Running Time: 87mins
Synopsis: Senegal, a West African nation on the Atlantic Ocean, was home to Africa’s greatest movie-maker, Ousmane Sembene. Today, Moussa Touré follows in the master’s footsteps with this drama of 30 men (and one woman, a stowaway) who set out on an illegal 7-day voyage to Spain – making the perilous trip in a pirogue – a boat resembling a vastly oversized dinghy. While sharing a common desire to build a better future, these men hail from different ethnic and religious backgrounds. The story grows from a finely delineated mosaic of personalities – reactions to the mounting danger of the journey that span the emotional panoply of human experience. Touré’s compelling tale says as much about the universal nature of courage and perfidy as it does about the economic realities faced by so many of the world’s people.
