Tasuma

Stern-faced Mamadou Zerbo plays Sogo, a 67 year old war veteran who spent ten years, two months, and three days fighting France's colonial wars in Algeria and Indochina. He's spent the last two years trying to claim the veteran's pension that's rightfully his, but Kafakesque red tape gets in the way and the money never seems to arrive. When Sogo finally loses his patience, a trip to the local pokey is in order...but the women of his home village have other ideas. This is a simple, heartwarming story of one man's struggle for justice. Tasuma is able to completely eschew full frontal social and political commentary whilst telling a straightforward and personal tale that speaks volumes about the treatment of the forgotten and discarded implements of imperial wars. There are other subtle (and not so subtle) progressive politics at work here, with Sogo repeatedly speaking out against arranged marriages, and the Arab shopkeeper character Khalil (Besani Raoul Khalil in a splendid performance) presented as a multidimensional character with his heart ultimately in the right place.