Hivernage

RAINY SEASONIn the midst of the rainy season, or African monsoon, Dakar is stifling. When the rain falls, sudden, explosive and vigorous, the city comes alive, revigorated, and children splash in the puddles. During one of these games, a child discovers a strange object in the gutter: a severed, bloody penis. Laughter mixes with embarrassment and disgust until the children finally decide to alert commissioner Jules-Souleymane Faye. Faye begins an investigation that will lead him from Dakar to Louga, desert lands in the furthest reaches of the country. En route he comes across a stunning African woman raised in France, Léocady, a free-spirited, open-minded artist, her lover Bokar, the young chief-of-staff of a large daily newspaper, and Mariama, wife of an immigrant, one of the numerous women who only see their husband once every two or three years because they have left to earn a living for their family in " Europe". Far from the metropolis of Dakar, Jules-Souleymane will soon discover a different reality of his country. Laurence Gavron is in Dakar where she is a documentary filmmaker. She writes regulary for the local press and has exposed her photography several times in Senegal.