DIYA

Dane, a driver for a humanitarian NGO in N’Djamena, leads a peaceful life with his young wife Delphine, who is eight months pregnant. A moment of inattention, a cell phone ringing at the wrong time, a boy crossing the road too quickly: an accident. After some confusion at the hospital, he is told that the young boy has died. The deceased’s family demands compensation and claims “the Diya,” the price of blood. His quest to pay the Diya will take him to the desert in northern Chad, where he will discover the truth about the event that turned his life upside down.

“Diya is primarily a story of geography and religious confession. The setting and attire are characters in their own right. Following a civil war in 1979 in Chad, pitting southern Christians against northern Muslims, the population remained divided and dispersed according to their geographic and religious affiliations. Thus, in N’Djamena, there are northern neighborhoods inhabited by Muslims, characterised by religious austerity, where one can hear the calls of the muezzin for the 5am daily prayers. Women are all veiled and covered from head to toe, and men wear long boubous. However, in the southern neighborhoods inhabited by Christians, one will find bars, nightclubs, churches, and men and women proudly strolling the streets in Western attire. Therefore, one can never speak of Diya without referencing these very important details.”

DIRECTOR, SCREENPLAY: Achille Ronaimou. CINEMATOGRAPHY: Cyrille Hubert. FILM EDITING: Guillaume Talvas. MUSICA: Afrotronix. SUONO: Jean-Christophe Lion. CAST: Ferdinand Mbaïssané, Moussa Zakaria Ibet, Ramada Mahamat, Youssouf Djaoro, Haïkal Zakaria. PRODUZIONE: Issa Serge Coelo, Valéry du Peloux for Sic Productions, Artisans du Film, Canal+, FilmGalerie451, Babi Pictures, L’Atelier.

CONTATTO: Biltine sicproductions@free.fr