Senegal and France / 2019 / 26mins / Drama / French, English, and Wolof

In Dakar, a few days before the feast of Tabaski, a painter shuts himself away in his studio to work on the theme of the ritual sacrifice of the ram. Red paint drips from sketches hanging on clotheslines. An inscription on the wall reads: "Tabaski, who's next?." Three characters and a sheep revolve around him and reconnect him with reality. Blending fiction, art and politics, this film is freely inspired by Iba Ndiaye, who through his work addressed the victims of colonization, segregation, and apartheid and the wave of assisanions in post-colonial Africa and the diaspora.

Laurence Attali

Laurence studied philosophy and cinema at the Sorbonne in Paris, and theater in Vincennes, before turning to film editing. She has been the chief editor on fiction and documentary film and television projects. She has taught her craft, at institutions throughout the world, through INA (National Audiovisual Institute). She later moved on to directing with the series La petite minute de bonheur. Laurence was sent to Senegal by INA for a short period and later returned to make her first documentary Mourtala Diop voyageur de l'art (1993). She later founded AUTOPRODUCTION, and began continuous round trips between Paris and Dakar where she has directed and produced most of her films. Earlier on, her work mainly consisted of documentary works. She began making fiction films with La Trilogie des Amours (The Trilogy of Love): Même le vent (Even the Wind), Baobab and Le Déchaussé (The Unshod Man). The Trilogy of Love has been selected by numerous festivals, including the Venice Mostra, Locarno, San Sebastian, New York Film Festival, New Directors New Films, Rotterdam, Durban, Roma FF, Fespaco, among many others, have received numerous awards and is part of the private collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Since the 2000s, she has edited and produced the award-winning documentaries of Ousmane William Mbaye. Her 2019 film, Tabaski, produced by Mbaye, blends fiction, art and politics. It won the Best Voices Short, Audience Award - IFFR Rotterdam, the Grand Jury Prize at Dakar Court, and is in the collection of the Museum of Black Civilizations, Dakar. Learn More