CLOUDS OVER CONAKRY (IL VA PLEUVOIR SUR CONAKRY) World Cinema: African Showcase

CLOUDS OVER CONAKRY takes us into urban Africa, where the new-beauty pageants, Apple laptops, recording studio, beachside bars-clashes with the old, and in Conakry, the weatherman is predicting rain.

Bangali (known as BB) secretly works as a cartoonist at the city paper for his girlfriend’s father, satirizing the local religious zealots. Unfortunately for BB, his father is the local imam. BB still hasn’t gotten up the nerve to tell his father what he does for a living when he learns that he has been chosen as the next imam. To make matters worse, BB is in love with a woman of whom his father does not approve.

Instead of making a romantic comedy out of this situation, Guinean director Cheick Fantamady Camara opts for a more challenging approach to his debut feature. The result is heartbreaking. Camara is a talented new African filmmaker on the rise.