09/05/2023 - Burkinabé filmmaker Chloé Aïcha Boro tells her complicated family story in a sober, thoughtful and intriguing way

After its world premiere at Visions du Réel, the first feature-length documentary by French-based Burkinabé filmmaker Chloé Aïcha Boro has screened at Hot Docs. In Al Djanat, the Original Paradise, the director deals with her complicated family story through an admirably sober, down-to-earth approach that incorporates many wider topics.

Boro belongs to the respected and influential Coulibaly family of the Malinke people, and after her uncle Ousmane, the patriarch and local religious leader, dies in a stampede on his Hajj to Mecca, she returns to their compound in a village near Dédougou. There is a huge task at hand: Ousmane is survived by 19 children, with the extended family the size of a tribe, as the director describes it in her voice-over, and now the inheritance needs to be taken care of.

Even if both Islamic and animistic traditions didn't prohibit the splitting of land, there is still no way for every person to get their share, and two main factions emerge. The land here refers to their ancestral courtyard in the compound, and one part of the family wants to keep it as it is, belonging to everybody, while the others want to sell it. Ousmane's brothers are afraid that it will go only to his children, and they go to court to file a lawsuit.

The key players are four of Ousmane's sons, among whom Checki and Bilal seem to be the most outspoken. Checki runs the family finances, so obviously he is for selling the land, while Bilal, the youngest, wants to follow in his father's footsteps. The courtyard is much more than property; it is their spiritual centre, the home of their ancestors, something they are very strongly connected to. In past times, people would come to pray there since there were not many mosques built in the region.

All of this transpires through numerous talks the family members have, both in smaller, closer-knit groups and in a sort of forum when many of them sit in a circle on one of the porches and heatedly discuss their opinions and needs. Of course, women are not part of this, but Boro makes sure she tells their stories, too, especially that of Ousmane's daughter Sanaa. She was in an arranged marriage which is now long over, and she is one of the rare people who still actually live in the compound, so if it is gone, she will lose her home.

Now the seeds of discord have been sown among the family, and the atmosphere is nervous and oppressive. Things get even worse after protesters (it's not revealed what kind) destroy the courthouse and everything is put on hold.

Boro strongly accentuates customs and traditions, the most interesting one having to deal with the umbilical cord, which is buried in the ancestral land after the child is born; if it's not, the child will not turn out right. A couple of sequences, including a birth, are connected to this ritual.

This is a complex, multi-layered film that clearly depicts the clash between traditions and modernisation. Tribal landowning rules are hard to reconcile with Western laws, but women are starting to realise they don't have to be slaves, which provokes a backlash among men. Boro's voice-over is used sparingly to clarify some issues, but her philosophical musings about identity, the structure of the family and her longing for home are even more insightful and engaging.

Al Djanat, the Original Paradise is a co-production between France's Les Films de l’oeil sauvage, Burkina Faso's Les Productions Métissées and Benin's Merveilles Production. Andana Films has the international rights.