Karoninka

Mali, 1960. The youth of Bamako dance the twist to rock and roll music newly imported from the West and dream of political renewal. Samba, a young socialist, falls for spirited Lara during one of his missions to the bush. To escape her forced marriage, she secretly flees with him to the city. But Lara’s husband won’t let them be and the Revolution soon brings painful disillusions as they dream of a future together.

We hear the thoughts of Amy, a girl from a rural area of Senegal who works as a domestic for a well-to-do family in Dakar. She complains about her employer, who continuously criticizes her and gets on her case, and she talks about her dream of one day opening her own eatery. In Dakar, some 150,000 young women work as housekeepers for rich families to survive and help their families instead of going to school.

Ramatoulaye, a 50-year-old teacher, has been married to lawyer Modou Fall for 25 years. The couple is very close and happy. When her husband takes a second wife – her daughter's best friend – a struggle between tradition and modernity begins.

During a vacation in Bordeaux, Lili, 4, and her brothers, aged 9 and 20, find themselves left to their own devices when their flamboyant mother returns without them to Gabon to run her restaurant- discotheque. Torn between the desire to return to her lost paradise and the duty to take her "chance" while making her mother proud, Lili will grow up, use all the strategies to survive, succeed and find the lights of her native Africa.

After foiling a plot against the crown, Katanga is named head of the army. Seeking reassurance, he consults a soothsayer who foretells a stark destiny: he will either ascend to the throne as king, or die in the next coup.