Des étoiles by Dyana Gay, is a testimony on Senegal today as seen from its Diaspora’s point of view.

As many of their countrymen, Sophie, Mame Amy, Thierno, and Abdoulaye are torn between Africa and the West, the past and the future, dream and reality, one’s ancient culture and their longing for freedom. The purpose of the film is not to judge the good and the bad in migration, but to rather focus on destinies often reduced to nothing more than footnotes and statistics. These destinies, though distinct, echo one another, the same way as a constellation, which is nothing more than a design shaped by several stars, are thousands of miles away from one another. This film is for me the opportunity to pay tribute to what we all are: just passing by.

Under the skies of three cities – Turin, New York, and Dakar – Dyana Gaye charts the accidental intersections of characters in transit. Plans are derailed, happenstance meetings change courses, and destinies intertwine. Sophie (Marème Demba Ly), a young Senegalese bride, follows her husband, Abdoulaye (Souleymane Seye N’Diaye), from Dakar to Turin, where he has travelled without papers to look for work. Meanwhile, Abdoulaye has already has left for New York, lured by his cousin, Serigne (Babacar M’Baye Fall), and a promise of better opportunities. Abdoulaye’s one contact in New York, Sophie’s aunt, is en route to Dakar with her son, Thierno (Ralph Amoussou), to bury the husband she left twenty years earlier.

Quietly dramatic, Under the Starry Sky captures with masterful exactitude the anxieties one can suffer while experiencing far-flung geographies and cultures. Accentuating the shadowy world of undocumented travel, the film unravels like a cinematic scroll of the mysterious grand design that draws people together, in empathy and antipathy, as they fight to shape their lives and pursue their aspirations.

Gaye’s tapestry of stories and characters, linked and yet stretched across time zones, is a gorgeously orchestrated meditation on being out of one’s element and negotiating a place for oneself in this world, knowing that life is itself merely a passage.

The screening will be followed by an open discussion with director Dyana Gaye as well as by a small reception.

The film will be screened as a special schools Screening on 11 December 2014, 10h00 and in Munich on the 13 December at 11h00.

The screening is organised by AfricAvenir, Sunugaal, AK Panafrikanismus München and EZEF, funded by Aktion Afrika of the German Federal Foreign Office.

Media Partners: Africiné, SEV-Magazin, Zentrum Moderner Orient, Club der Freunde von RFI, Berlin Poche, rendez-vous-cine.de, Exberliner, multicult.fm, Art Labour Archives, Planète Métis, Contemporary &

http://vimeo.com/87584299

10th December 2014 8 – 10 pm 

Hackesche Höfe Kino
Rosenthaler Straße 40/41
10178 Berlin

Tickets: 7,50€

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