This is, foremost, a beautiful and moving film despite the tragic real-life incident it is based on—the white oppression resuming with the return of West African Armed Forces soldiers to Senegal from the European war front and facing indignities and racism from the French colonialists they helped liberate from fascism.

Written and directed by Ousmane Sembène with Thierno Faty Sow, shot in 35mm, the film develops from a comedy as gentle as the pastel shades of beiges and blues of the uniforms, barracks, skies, and landscape into a tensely developing political thriller that bleeds red by the end, yet never losing out on capturing moments of subtle tenderness throughout. So much of the charm comes from the performances as well as from the film's motley cast of characters. Sembène packs so much history and detail into his simple narrative design. The film won the Grand Special Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival in 1988.

- Nithin Manayath

Restored by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in association with the Tunisian Ministry of Cultural Affairs and the Senegalese Ministry of Culture and Historical Heritage. With special thanks to Mohamed Challouf and Association Cine-Sud Patrimoine.

Restoration funded by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation.

This restoration is part of the African Film Heritage Project, an initiative created by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, the Pan African Federation of Filmmakers, and UNESCO—in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna—to help locate, restore, and disseminate African cinema.