Mural Paintings in West Africa

AWAITING FOR MEN

Belgium 2007 | 56 Min. | DigiBeta, OmeU

The red-walled clay city of Ouala­ta, on the far edge of the Mau­ri­tan­ian desert, pro­vides the atmos­pher­ic set­ting of Katy Léna Ndiaye’s stereo­type-shat­ter­ing por­trait of fem­i­nin­i­ty and sex­u­al­i­ty in the Sahara. Three inde­pen­dent women speak direct­ly to the camera about their expe­ri­ences as brides, wives, and divorcees, and about the often tricky rela­tion­ship between men and women in a soci­ety seem­ing­ly dom­i­nat­ed by tra­di­tion and mas­cu­line rule. “When they stop loving me, it’s time to go,” declares one. The women’s art -intri­cate designs etched onto the town’s walls and doors -lends a fur­ther flavor to this film’s fresh look at female empow­er­ment and expres­sion in one of Africa’s most remote, beau­ti­ful regions. AWAITING FOR MEN is her second doc­u­men­tary film. 

Traces, Women’s Imprints
(TRACES, EMPREINTES DE FEMMES)

Katy Léna Ndiaye
France, Senegal 2003 | 56 Min. | DigiBeta, OmeU
Katy Léna Ndiaye’s doc­u­men­tary cen­ters around the expe­ri­ence of a group of women in Burk­i­na Faso: Three grand­moth­ers from the Kasse­na tribe who wish to impart their tra­di­tion­al art of … read more