Alexandre Ogou

BB works as a political cartoonist at a liberal newspaper, his more outrageous efforts duly appreciated but not necessarily published by his boss. He's in love with the boss’ lovely, talented computer-scientist daughter, Kesso. But his choice meets with stiff opposition from his strict Muslim father Karamako, who is the chief of his village as well as imam of Conakry, especially when Kesso becomes pregnant with BB’s child.

Bella, a 30-year-old Guinean cabaret singer, lives a miserable, dangerous life as a prostitute in Dakar. Though she longs for escape, a gang of pimps, led by Kèba, treat her like property and make sure she keeps in her place. Her only hope is the thought of earning enough money to escape and reunite with her daughter, who she gave up at birth at age 15—a desperate act that haunts Bella’s nightmares and fills her with guilt. While fleeing an angry client, she meets Yélo, a Guinean worker for the United Nations, who happens to be passing through Dakar. Instantly smitten, Yélo agrees to help Bella, and so begins an epic journey of redemption, from Guinea to Paris. But can the young couple escape the clutches of the menacing Kèba?

From the director of Marius et Jeannette, this story of two working-class families is a fable with an optimist streak. A young black man, Francois, is wrongly accused of rape by a racist policeman. The story is told in voiceover by his childhood friend, neighbor, and the mother of his future child, Clementine, who is white. The city is Marseilles as in the previous film, symbolic with its churches, prisons and ruins. Except in this film, director Robert Guediguian also ventures outside, taking the story to Sarajevo; two different cities, one devastated by war, the other by a bad economy and unemployment. A la Place du coeur won a Special Jury Prize at the 1998 San Sebastian Film Festival and was also shown at the 1998 Toronto Film Festival and the 1998 Montreal Film Festival.

Césaire, le prix de la liberté