"Great African Films, Volume Two: Tasuma / Sia, the Dream of the Python"
2003/2001
Directed by Kollo Daniel Sanou / Dani Kouyate

The second installment in this series of award-winning films from Africa includes Kollo Sanou's Tasuma (2003, 90 minutes, French and Jula with English subtitles), a comic look at the impact of Western colonialism on Africa. Retired from the French army, West African native Sogo waits patiently for his pension, which he plans to use to build a grain mill for the women of his village. When the money doesn't arrive, he and the villagers take matters into their own hands. "Tasuma camouflages its razor-sharp indignation with warmth and disarming grace" (Village Voice). Next is Dani Kouyate's Sia, the Dream of the Python (2001, 96 minutes, Bambara with English subtitles), a modern adaptation of a seventh-century African legend. A poor village decides it must make a human sacrifice to a mystical snake god to guarantee a better future. Sia, the most beautiful woman in the village, is chosen for the ritual, but she runs away in revolt. "Delivers a powerful commentary on how governments lie, no matter who runs them" (New York Post).  186 minutes.