Drissa Toure

In the first half of the 1990s, Drissa Touré was an auteur fast on the rise, with his first fiction feature, Laada (1991), celebrating its world premiere in a Cannes sidebar, from whence it went around the world, Rotterdam included. Touré's next narrative project, Haramuya (1995), was again welcomed warmly and seen widely. But what happened then? How could an obviously gifted filmmaker from one of world cinema's true hubs, Burkina Faso, not find the means to continue? How did Touré end up riding a motorcycle, doing deliveries and errands? The fact that only a few years after Haramuya's release, Atria, the organisation where Touré deepened his technical knowledge of filmmaking, was closed down as the last francs of support were cancelled suggests that Touré's story is also a symptom of something more structural and grim.

The story centers on a devout Muslim, Faco, who tries to run his two-wife household in the traditional way. The trouble begins when his ambitious younger son, Kalifa lapses and gets involved with his older brother's hoodlum friends. Kalifa then gives them his money and soon loses his job. The city has a curfew at night and only those with a highly-prized identity card are allowed out. Police rigorously patrol the streets in search of whores and people without cards. One homeless, unemployed man, Oussou, decides to earn the card by becoming a stoolie for the cops, and snitches on Kalifa's older brother, precipitating a police raid of Faco's home that results in their finding a cache of illegal drugs. Faco and the older son are both stripped naked and thrown in jail. Suddenly Faco finds himself brutalized and humiliated by his Muslim brothers. Meanwhile, the dark-skinned daughter of a white storekeeper, with a lust for black hookers, sets off to find her real mother.

The story centers on a devout Muslim, Faco, who tries to run his two-wife household in the traditional way. The trouble begins when his ambitious younger son, Kalifa lapses and gets involved with his older brother's hoodlum friends. Kalifa then gives them his money and soon loses his job. The city has a curfew at night and only those with a highly-prized identity card are allowed out. Police rigorously patrol the streets in search of whores and people without cards. One homeless, unemployed man, Oussou, decides to earn the card by becoming a stoolie for the cops, and snitches on Kalifa's older brother, precipitating a police raid of Faco's home that results in their finding a cache of illegal drugs. Faco and the older son are both stripped naked and thrown in jail. Suddenly Faco finds himself brutalized and humiliated by his Muslim brothers. Meanwhile, the dark-skinned daughter of a white storekeeper, with a lust for black hookers, sets off to find her real mother.

This film tells the story of a 12-year-old boy who is looking for his father. It's been three years since the latter left for the USA and since then, he has severed ties with his family since he does not write and he does not call either. The young man is disturbed and he never stops wondering what happened to his father in this American adventure. Sometimes he wonders if his father hasn't forgotten him. But what hurts him most of all is that all the young people in the neighborhood are tempted, like his father, by an adventure in the USA, the country that took his father away from him.

“La loi de Moïse”, a film by Drissa Touré.

Directed by Drissa Toure.

Directed by Drissa Toure.

The story centers on a devout Muslim, Faco, who tries to run his two-wife household in the traditional way. The trouble begins when his ambitious younger son, Kalifa lapses and gets involved with his older brother's hoodlum friends. Kalifa then gives them his money and soon loses his job. The city has a curfew at night and only those with a highly-prized identity card are allowed out. Police rigorously patrol the streets in search of whores and people without cards. One homeless, unemployed man, Oussou, decides to earn the card by becoming a stoolie for the cops, and snitches on Kalifa's older brother, precipitating a police raid of Faco's home that results in their finding a cache of illegal drugs. Faco and the older son are both stripped naked and thrown in jail. Suddenly Faco finds himself brutalized and humiliated by his Muslim brothers. Meanwhile, the dark-skinned daughter of a white storekeeper, with a lust for black hookers, sets off to find her real mother.