Paris-based sales company Wide has boarded worldwide rights to Apolline Traoré’s Sira ahead of the film’s world premiere in Berlin’s Panorama.
Wide will kick off sales for the co-production from Burkina Faso, France, Germany and Senegal at EFM alongside Pape Boye’s production/financing and sales outfit Black Mic Mac.
Sira is written and directed by Burkinabe filmmaker Traoré who also produces alongside Denis Cougnaud of France’s Araucania Films.
Souleymane Kebe of Senegal’s Sunuy films, Sarika Hemi Lakhani of Germany’s One Fine Day Films and Canal+ International are also on board as co-producers.
Set in the Sahel, an area that has been plagued with ongoing conflict and terrorist confrontation for many years, the film is about a struggle for survival where the female veil becomes an instrument of resistance. Billed as feminist counterpoint to current reporting on the region, the story focuses on a young nomad travelling to meet her groom when she and her family are attacked by Islamist terrorists. The men are shot to death and the young woman is kidnapped and raped, then left for dead in the middle of the desert, but manages to escape and hide in a cave as she plots her survival plan.
Wide will also market premiere Kristina Atovska’s Ukraine war documentary Siren Lullabies narrated by the director herself and will host the first online market screenings for Adrien Bellay’s French documentary Low Tech and Siddharth Chauhan’s Tallinn Black Nights jury award winning Amar Colony.
Also on its EFM slate are Marisa Vallone’s first feature Land Of Women set in 1950s Sardinia that follows two generations of women fighting against tradition for sexual and emotional freedom.
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