SALOUM
Quentin Tarantino meets Bong Joon Ho meets Guy Ritchie meets Nabwana I.G.G. in Congolese director Jean Luc Herbulot's (Netflix's SAKHO & MANGANE) effortlessly cool, epically genre-shifting creature feature-western-action-heist-revenge thriller. Set during Guinea-Bissau's 2003 coup d'état, SALOUM follows the legendary "Bangui's Hyenas" — Chaka (Yann Gael), Rafa (Roger Sallah) and Minuit (Mentor Ba) — a trio of famed mercenaries on a mission to extract a Mexican drug lord (Renaud Farah) and his wares from the war-torn country and head to Dakar, Senegal. When the men are shot down over Senegal's myth-steeped Sine-Saloum region, they are forced to take refuge in a nearby holiday resort, where they attempt — and fail — to blend in with the tourists. As the mercenaries begin to raise eyebrows among the resort's other guests — which include both a suspicious police captain (Ndiaga Mbow) and an enigmatic, non-verbal deaf woman (Evelyne Ily Juhen) who harbors secrets of her own, their unplanned sojourn sparks a chain reaction of double-crosses and blackmail attempts. But it soon becomes apparent that they all have far more to worry about than drug deals gone wrong and other mundane, worldly concerns. Taking cues from genre hybrids like FROM DUSK TIL DAWN and PREDATOR as well as from African-Caribbean folklore, SALOUM skillfully — and very entertainingly — refashions cinematic tropes to fit a completely unexpected cultural context. Official Selection, 2021 Toronto, FantasticFest, Vancouver and Philadelphia film festivals. DIR/SCR/PROD Jean Luc Herbulot; SCR/PROD Pamela Diop. Senegal/France, 2021, color, 84 min. In French and Wolof with English subtitles. NOT RATED
No AFI Member passes accepted.
Run Time: 84 Minutes
Opening Date: Saturday, March 19, 2022
Genre: Action thriller
