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courtesy Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique

Canceled—Wend Kuuni

film series: African Legacy: Francophone Films 1955 to 2019

African Legacy: Francophone Films 1955 to 2019

  • Saturday, March 21, 2020
  • 4:00 p.m.
  • East Building Auditorium
  • In-person

As a precautionary measure in light of COVID-19, the Gallery has canceled this event. We hope to welcome you to the Gallery soon and thank you for your support.

A parable of precolonial Africa, Wend Kuuni recounts the saga of a mute and famished youth who, abandoned in the bush, is discovered and raised with tender compassion by the Mossi tribe. “Wend Kuuni not only shows the tragedy that renders the boy mute but also uses another tragedy to restore his speech and open him to society, to whom he then relates the experience. In simple oral narrative, this could take the form of linear structuring, but in it its cinematic rendering, episodic sequential units introduce three stories that merge into one.”—Nwachukwu Frank Ukadike (Gaston Kaboré, 1982, subtitles, 75 minutes) Special thanks to Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique.