French-Senegalese actor and producer Seydina Baldé has worn many hats across his career including World Karate Champion and stuntman on films such as Brian de Palma’s Femme Fatale and Bond movie Casino Royale, but his dream since childhood has been to be an actor.
After a dozen small parts, Baldé engineered his first starring role with the self-produced, English-language action thriller Covert Operation (aka The Borderland). The North Korean-set movie, about a bounty hunter on a mission to break prisoners out of high-security military compound, sold to Lionsgate for the U.S. and won praise from action movie fans.
A decade later, Baldé is appearing in the most ambitious production of his career, six-part show Lex Africana, which is being billed as the first martial arts-based action thriller to come out of West Africa.
Baldé plays brilliant architect and martial arts expert Gabriel Aliou Thiam who returns after a...
After a dozen small parts, Baldé engineered his first starring role with the self-produced, English-language action thriller Covert Operation (aka The Borderland). The North Korean-set movie, about a bounty hunter on a mission to break prisoners out of high-security military compound, sold to Lionsgate for the U.S. and won praise from action movie fans.
A decade later, Baldé is appearing in the most ambitious production of his career, six-part show Lex Africana, which is being billed as the first martial arts-based action thriller to come out of West Africa.
Baldé plays brilliant architect and martial arts expert Gabriel Aliou Thiam who returns after a...
- 5/7/2024
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
The interlinked names of the lovers have an unusual power in Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s haunting, halting “Banel & Adama.” They play over and over as a whispery lullaby on the soundtrack. They cover the sheets of paper on which Banel (Khady Mane) compulsively writes, like a schoolgirl practicing cursive on the name of her crush. There’s an innocence to it at the beginning, as though Banel, whose strange mind we mostly occupy, is simply delighting in the sound and shape of their togetherness. But that’s when “Banel & Adama” is a love story, and before it descends, a little too hesitantly but with a subtly seductive power nonetheless, into drought and madness and maybe, cosmic retribution. The sun-and-superstition-soaked tale of an African girl contending with fate and folk tradition has some precedent in Rungano Nyoni’s excellent “I Am Not a Witch.” But here, as the bright imagery...
- 5/20/2023
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Sales banner Best Friend Forever has unveiled the teaser for Ramata Toulaye-Sy’s buzzed-about Senegalese drama “Banel & Adama,” which is the sole feature debut slated for the competition at the Cannes Film Festival.
The lushly lensed female emancipation drama, set to bow on May 20, takes place in a remote village of Northern Senegal where Banel and Adama are fiercely in love. Longing for a home of their own, they have decided to live apart from their families. When Adama refuses his blood duty as future chief and informs the village council of his intentions, the whole community is disrupted and chaos ensues.
The film was shot in Pulaar language with a cast of local non-professional actors, including Khady Mane, Mamadou Diallo, Binta Racine Sy and Moussa Sow.
Toulaye-Sy said she wanted the film to tell a tragic love story that would be relatable to everyone. The helmer, who studied...
The lushly lensed female emancipation drama, set to bow on May 20, takes place in a remote village of Northern Senegal where Banel and Adama are fiercely in love. Longing for a home of their own, they have decided to live apart from their families. When Adama refuses his blood duty as future chief and informs the village council of his intentions, the whole community is disrupted and chaos ensues.
The film was shot in Pulaar language with a cast of local non-professional actors, including Khady Mane, Mamadou Diallo, Binta Racine Sy and Moussa Sow.
Toulaye-Sy said she wanted the film to tell a tragic love story that would be relatable to everyone. The helmer, who studied...
- 5/11/2023
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Best Friend Forever has boarded Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s debut feature “Banel & Adama,” a lushly lensed Senegalese female emancipation drama. Now in post, the movie is expected to have its world premiere later this year.
‘Banel & Adama’ is set a remote village of Northern Senegal where Banel and Adama are fiercely in love. Longing for a home of their own, they have decided to live apart from their families. When Adama refuses his blood duty as future chief and informs the village council of his intentions, the whole community is disrupted and chaos ensues.
Sy studied at France’s prestigious film school La Femis and previously directed the short film “Astel” which played at Toronto, New Directors/New Films and Clermont, where it won the Special Jury award, among 80 festivals to date. Ramata, meanwhile, previously co-wrote “Our Lady of the Nil” which played at Toronto, and “Sibel” which played at Locarno and Toronto.
‘Banel & Adama’ is set a remote village of Northern Senegal where Banel and Adama are fiercely in love. Longing for a home of their own, they have decided to live apart from their families. When Adama refuses his blood duty as future chief and informs the village council of his intentions, the whole community is disrupted and chaos ensues.
Sy studied at France’s prestigious film school La Femis and previously directed the short film “Astel” which played at Toronto, New Directors/New Films and Clermont, where it won the Special Jury award, among 80 festivals to date. Ramata, meanwhile, previously co-wrote “Our Lady of the Nil” which played at Toronto, and “Sibel” which played at Locarno and Toronto.
- 2/17/2023
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
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