Keswick Film Festival

Synopsis

Veteran Senegalese director Sembene Ousmane here tackles the controversy of female circumcision in a passionate drama set in a rural village in Burkina Faso. When four little girls flee a purification ceremony and 'the cut', they take refuge with Collie (Fatoumata Coulibaly), a woman who refused to have her own daughter circumcised. She casts a mystical protection (the Moolaadé of the title) and a standoff follows. It is a warm hearted and wryly observed take on village life.