SYNOPSIS
A man employs a young carer to look after his father, who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, but the carer herself has a serious kidney condition.

A SPECIAL INTERVIEW
​Laura Odello, director of the festival, talks with Narcisse Wandji about the genesis of his film, Sadrack, and its central theme: amnesia and memory.

"Narcisse Wandji is a Cameroonian director and screenwriter who has helmed several films, including Walls (2016, a short film starring Gérard Essomba), Bendskins - Mototaxi (2021, his first feature film), and Sadrack (2022). Notably, Sadrack received the Samir Farid Screenplay Prize at the 23rd Khouribga International African Film Festival (FICAK, May 6-13, 2023). Additionally, Wandji was nominated for FESPACO 2023. Wandji, alongside his film endeavors, holds a PhD in French-language literature and media from the University of Bayreuth (Germany).
Without delving into the plot, I suggest focusing on the intricate interplay between different linguistic presences and how this interaction shapes diverse world interpretations, transcending mere communicative tools. What happens when characters speak different languages, and how does this influence their relationships?
The theme of languages and culture, and the constant threat of their loss, is inexorably linked to the film's conceptual matrix: the pervasive infiltration of amnesia, metaphorically intersecting with the acculturative impact of Western colonialism and its eradication of local memories. At this point, one may recall Susan Sontag's famous work – Illness as Metaphor – as a rich reference.
However, the film's apparent metaphorical dimension is consistently counteracted by a re-materialization of the vulnerability experienced by the characters. A passage from Wandji's interview with Laura Odello [see above] struck me, where the director emphasized the autobiographical dimension of the film and underscored the importance of challenging the invisibility in which mental-related illnesses are often confined in Cameroon. This is another facet of the film's decolonial project: an attempt to de-Europeanize  the framing of mental illnesses and their medical approach in a former French-colonized African country.
Such tension also permeates the imaginative power, elicited by the cinematic medium, of 'curing the incurable' (to quote, with opposite significance, Rachel's aunt) while exploring alternative paths: the inter- and intra-personal recognition of a shared vulnerability serving as the impetus for novel forms of inter-caring relationships."

(from the introduction to the film by Samuele Capanna, graduate student in Italian Studies)