Faraw!

Poor exposure quality sometimes hampers this excellent hand-made feature about the life of a single mother in Mali. In her region there are no motor vehicles and no telephones. The whole area seems pretty barren and she is struggling with troublesome sons and a wayward daughter. No one will let them have so much as a bowl of meal.

So, our heroine heads off to talk to all the contacts she knows, including the ones "from Satan". Finally, she thinks of her early suitor, a man who still values her, and he lets her have a fine donkey. She immediately uses it to fetch a skin of water and sell it to various itinerant customers. At last, she has a bag of meal and brings it back to her family. This stately circuit of hers is a powerful second act.

After an initial scare with her helpless husband, during the night she has a significant dream that we share with her. In the morning she finds that her daughter has turned over a new leaf: the pot is on the fire, and the young woman is off on the donkey selling water. It's a happy ending to a unique film, made on a shoe-string, but beautifully thought through and true-to-life. It's actually about the director's mother. What a gem this is, and no one on IMDb has ever seen it!