BANEL & ADAMA Trailer: Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s West African Love Story Arrives in June

If you’re in the mood for a lush love story this summer, you may be in luck with writer-director Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s Banel & Adama. Senegal’s official entry to the 2024 Oscars centers on a young couple’s (Khady Mane and Mamadou Diallo) devoted bond in a remote village that’s threatened by both the disapproval of their elders and strange phenomena. It had it’s world premiere at Cannes last year – the only debut feature to premiere in-competition – before making stops at TIFF, BFI London, and Rendezvous with French Cinema. Kino Lorber has released the U.S. trailer ahead of its release this June.

Here’s the official synopsis:

Banel and Adama are fiercely in love. The young married couple lives in a remote village in northern Senegal. For them, nothing else exists. But for the rest of their tight-knit village, duty dictates that Adama soon accept the role of chief. The young man and his lovelorn wife have their own plans — until something in the air changes. The rains do not come, the cattle begin to die, the men leave. Senegal’s official submission to the Academy Awards and the only debut feature in competition at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, Banel & Adama is a lush and lyrical fable that soars to the heights of longing and descends deep into the realm of myth, sending its protagonists’ perfect everlasting love on a collision course with their community’s customs. Because in this world, there is no room for passion, let alone chaos.

Banel & Adama opens at NYC’s Film Forum on June 7 before expanding nationwide. Check out the trailer and poster below.

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