Lingui, the Sacred Bonds (Lingui, les liens sacrés)
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, 2022, Drama, 87 min.
In French and Chadian Arabic with English Subtitles
Screening followed by a discussion and Q&A with Abosede A. George, Venus Mahmoodi, and Emi Schlosser

On the outskirts of N'djamena in Chad, Amina lives alone with her only daughter, 15-year-old Maria. Her already fragile world collapses the day she discovers that her daughter is pregnant. The teenager does not want this pregnancy. In a country where abortion is not only condemned by religion, but also by law, Amina finds herself facing a battle that seems lost in advance.

Watch the trailer.

Speakers

Born in Abéché, Chad, in 1960, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun studied film in Paris, then journalism in Bordeaux. After working several years for various local newspapers, he directed his first short film Maria Tanié in 1994. In 1999, his first feature film, Bye-bye Africa, was selected at the Venice Film Festival where it won the Best First Film award. He then made Abouna (Our Father) in 2002 and Daratt, Dry Season (Special Jury Prize, Venice 2006). In 2010, A Screaming Man won the Jury Prize at the Cannes film festival and was awarded the Robert Bresson Prize at the Venice Film Festival and in 2011, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun was a member of the Official Jury at the Cannes Film Festival.

Abosede George is Tow Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies at Barnard. Her book, Making Modern Girls: A History of Girlhood, Labor, and Social Development, received the Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize in 2015 from the Women's Caucus of the African Studies Association, as well as Honorable Mention from the New York African Studies Association.

Venus Mahmoodi is an Assistant Professor of Medical Psychology (in Psychiatry) at CUIMC and part of the Women and Reproductive Mental Health Program. She is also a Clinical Researcher at the Early N3 Lab at CUIMC and Lab Director at Muslim Perinatal Lab at Teachers College.

Emilie Schlosser (moderator) is the 2024-2025 intern at Columbia Maison Française.

This film screening is presented as part of the Columbia University Maison Française 2024 Film Festival, CINEMA/CARE. The Festival is produced and presented by the Columbia Maison Française and curated by Fanny Guex, and Shanny Peer, and Eva Martin. The full festival program can be found here.