THE AFRICAN CHILD (L’ ENFANT NOIR) International Cinema

Freely adapted from Laye Camara’s 1953 autobiographical account, this is an unsentimental and
engaging look at a young man’s rite of passage, set in motion when he is torn away from the
roots of his traditional home village in Guinea and sent to school in the fast-paced big city
Remarkably, Camara’s own family relived their own story before the camera, giving the film a
magical dimension. “An admirable mix of imaginative literary adaptation and docu-like realism …
paints a rich, involving picture of the ongoing transition between village and city life in
Francophone Africa … Humanistic without being sentimental or didactic … Tech credits are all
first-rate, with especially valuable contributions coming from cinematographer Amar Arhab and
scorer Mamo Wandel Soumah.”-Godfrey Cheshire, Variety