A retelling of the celebrated "Carmen" myth set in contemporary Senegal to African music and dance. Like every Carmen, Karmen Gei is about the conflict between infinite desire for freedom and the laws, conventions, languages, the human limitations which constrain that desire.
Director Joseph Gai Ramaka writes: "Carmen is a myth but what does Carmen represent today? Where do Carmen's love and freedom stand at the onset of the 21st Century? Therein lies my film's intent, a black Carmen, plunged in the magical and chaotic urbanity of an African city." Prosper Merimee's novella, adapted in Bizet's celebrated opera, has already received 52 film interpretations, most notably the all black Carmen Jones, starring Dorothy Dandridge, and, more recently, Carlos Saura's flamenco Carmen and Jean-Luc Godard's B-movie version Pre Nom Carmen. Yet Karmen Gei is the first African Carmen and, arguably, the first African filmed "musical." Karmen Gei may convince viewers that this African ambience is what the Carmen legend, perhaps leading back through Andalusia to its African roots, has been waiting for all these years.
Official Selection at the Toronto International Film Festival. Official Selection at the Sundance Film Festival.
"African Cinema is known for its stylish cinematography, and here the underworld of Dakar and its kindly denizens are captured beautifully win dusky jewel tones rubbed with grit." - France Reade, SF Weekly
