Recently returned to her home in the Sultanate of Zinder after completing her degree abroad, a young woman suffering from the pain of a lost love finds renewal while awaiting the mystical promise of a new moon.

Tiyaa is a student, member of a prestigious aristocratic family. She is back home to sultanate of Damagaran, in Niger Republic, for the Winter holidays. As planned, she is expecting the young man she met in the university she is studying, in France, to make a formal proposal of marriage. He too comes from a prestigious family, not far from Damagaran and her parents cannot reject such an eligible fiancé.
Tiyaa is overwhelmed... While expecting him, she has time to inform her friends of this secret Parisian love. Life is pleasant and peaceful but time passes and the handsome suitor is slow to come.
Tiyaa has the opportunity to discover in her surroundings other women whose love stories, marriage, desertion or divorce tell of the relationship between men and women in the Sahelian society.

A film by Rahmatou Keïta

Niger / Burkina Faso / France, 2016, Fiction, 1h36 minutes, PG, colour, Songhoy / Zarma / Hausa / Fulaani

starring Magaajyia Silberfeld, Aïchatou Moussa, Aïchatou Lamine Fofana, Salamatou Kimba Farinwata, Harouna Amoud, Yazi Dogo, Mariam Kaba, Kudzo Do Tobias, Theo Kleiner

NOTE OF THE PROGRAMMER
The Wedding Ring is a story of love, pain, sensuality, and marriage. Rahmatou Keïta's second feature offers an empowering female-character-driven take on romantic fiction. It's also an immersive introduction to the fast-fading customs of Niger's Sahelian people.

Tiyaa (Magaajyia Silberfeld), a clever woman of aristocratic birth, should have the world at her feet when she returns home to the Sultinate of Zinder after completing her degree abroad. But Tiyaa is aimless and burdened by the pain of a lost love. In the absence of any better idea, she reluctantly seeks counsel from a zimma, a Zarma Songhay wise man who seeks answers to life's mysteries in the elements. He advises that, on the eve of the new moon, she should procure a foreign symbol of marriage: a plain gold wedding band. Otherwise, she will only risk more heartache.

Tiyaa is at first skeptical, but she is also patient, and she spends the days leading up to the new moon in a kind of pedestrian road movie, wandering the community as she waits for the lunar event. Encounters with women of various generations open Tiyaa's eyes to the possibility of romantic passion, and she witnesses how the women of Niger thoughtfully measure their own innate desire for passion and happiness.

Keïta's first feature was the documentary Al'lèèssi... an African Actress, which screened at Cannes. Now Keïta proves equally adept at directing fiction - but her film is firmly rooted in reality. Its exquisite costumes and meticulously detailed production design are crafted as a love letter to the Sahelian way of life.

CAMERON BAILEY (TIFF 2016, Toronto)
This film has been selected for the next generation of film lovers by the TIFF Next Wave Committee. Programmed by Cameron Bailey

Tags: Film Youth Gender, Sexuality + Identity, Coming of Age, Sub-Saharan Africa, Female Director, Black + African Diaspora, Female Experience

Producer: Maryam Keïta
Director: Rahmatou Keïta
Screenplay: Rahmatou Keïta
Cinematographer: Philippe Radoux-Bazzini
Editor: Camille Cotte
Production Designer: Boureïma Boubacar, Herve Yameogo
Sound: Laurent Malan
Music: Ali Johnny Maïga, Johann Sebastian Bach, Ibrahima Hamma Dicko, Philippe Miller, Giacomo Puccini
Original Score: Ali Johnny Maïga, Philippe Miller

Production Company: Sonrhay Empire Productions


2017 | Festival international du film musulman de Kazan 2017 (Tatarstan - Fédération de Russie
* Prix spécial du jury

2017 | FESPACO, Ouaga
* Prix de la meilleure image (pour Philippe Radoux-Bazzini)

2016 | TIFF, Toronto, Canada
* Selection - Contemporary World Cinema
* World Premiere
* Projection / Screening: Fri Sep 9 / 4:30pm, SCOTIA 7, sub
* Projection / Screening: Sat Sep 10 / 3:45pm, SCOTIA 10, sub
* Projection / Screening: Mon Sep 12 / 9:30pm, SCOTIA 11, sub
* Projection / Screening: Thu Sep 15 / 12:00pm, SCOTIA 8, sub
* Projection / Screening: Sun Sep 18 / 6:45pm, SCOTIA 9, sub
www.tiff.net/films/the-wedding-ring/