Njangaam
 

POSTED ON 13.10.2025

At the age of six, Mame leaves his mother to attend a Koranic school to receive an education.  

  © DR
Njangaam (1975)

Once arrived, he finds neither spiritual guidance nor education, but instead blatant exploitation, forced to perform unpaid labour, dictated by unscrupulous adults. Njangaam is an eye-opening drama about a system that enslaves the most vulnerable, far removed from any semblance of spirituality. Employing a remarkably simple sense of storytelling, a difficult feat, Senegalese director Mahama Johnson Traoré contrasts the excesses of an unequal society—the film was long banned by the government—with the love and tenderness of a mother who lives far away. The camera zooms in on faces, and the grace of the composed frames deliver a film of tremendous beauty, whose tone displays the same fondness for others and the bonds between characters that recall Chaplin's films. The choice to recount and transform a modern story into a timeless tale, with all its cruelty and tragedy, leads us to discover the fatal twists and turns inherent in a horrible society.

‘Go back home, that's where you belong,’ commands an authoritarian man to the mother of a child, still struggling to come to terms with her son's departure. This reveals another very relevant aspect of this film: it depicts how the lives of poor women and children are subject to a world dominated by a few men. With lyrical depth and talent, never veering into the didactic, Senegalese filmmaker Mahama Johnson Traoré creates a film that invites reflection effortlessly — where each image leaves you eager to discover the next. 

Virginie Apiou

Njangaan by Mahama Johnson Traoré (1975, 1h27)

Restoration by the Cinémathèque Afrique and the Institut français. 
Our thanks to Sunu Films Production

Pathé Bellecour Mon13 5.15pm | Institut Lumière (Villa) Wed15 11.30am | Institut Lumière (Villa) Wed15 11.45am