Left to Right: Sophie Aziakou (Translating); Director Angele Diabang (Speaking in mostly in Senegalese, sometimes in English); Festival Director Karen McMullan.
SO LONG A LETTER, the opening night film for 32nd NY African Film Festival, was followed by an Audience Q&A With Director Angèle Diabang, Festival Director KareBn McMullan and Sophie Aziakou, who assisted as a translator.
Some Key Points of the Q&A
• Director Angele Diabang told the audience she aimed to capture the relationships between women in the film, which are central to the feminist themes of the novel So Long a Letter, from which her film was based. Adapting the well-known novel was challenging, as Director Diabang explained she had to distance herself from the beloved letters in the book.
The film explores the societal pressures and class dynamics that influence women’s choices, particularly around marriage and polygamy. Diabang said she was careful in her depiction of religious and cultural elements to avoid potential controversies in Senegal, where the film is anticipated to be shown in the near future. The film seeks to portray Senegalese culture and women’s experiences in a nuanced way, acknowledging the interplay of tradition, religion, and feminist perspectives.
Ramatoulaye, headmistress of a primary school in Dakar and the mother of seven children, has been married to Modou for 30 years, and is shocked when he decides to take a second wife, 20-year-old Binetou. A merciless battle between tradition and modernity ensues, contrasting very different views of women’s roles in contemporary African society. The debut feature film by Senegalese screenwriter and documentarian Angèle Diabang Brener is based on the 1979 novel of the same name by Senegalese writer Mariama Bâ, rated among the top 12 in a tally of Africa’s 100 Best Books of the 20th Century at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair in 2002.
The director also addressed the potential reception of the film in Senegal, where polygamy remains a controversial and politically charged issue.
Festival Director Karen McMullan:
And do we have a translator? Okay. And our lovely translator. Thank you all for coming. I’m Karen McMullan. I’m a longtime friend of the Film Festival. I’m very happy to be here tonight to give this talk with this wonderful director.
So thank you again, 12 years, congratulations for sticking that out. I wanted to, well, first a little bit about you. You studied in France and Germany and Senegal also. You were an editor, you started as an editor as did I. And I just wanted to talk about where you came from and how you grew up personally influenced the making of this film.
Director Angele Diabang:
Thank you. [French 00:01:19] Thank you all. [French 00:01:22]
Sophie Aziakou – Translating:
Thank you all for being here and for your reactions. It was important for me to be in the room because I wanted to see how the audience would react.
So we studied the book in Senegal when we’re in middle school and we forget about it. But then we remember that the book has an influence throughout our lives, throughout the stages of our lives.
So I grew up in a closed environment in a boarding school, Catholic, and being behind the camera gave me a certain freedom.
Director Angele Diabang:
Yes, I decided to make film because it was a way for me to have words, to have the right to talk about my thought without asking for permission or explaining why I’m talking as a woman. I would hide myself behind the camera and tell everything I wanted.
Festival Director Karen McMullan:
So your first film, Mon Beau Sourire, was about the beauty standards of Senegalese women. And this film was about one another woman-centered issue. Can you talk about the relationship between the two films, and also to explain the difference between doing a documentary and maybe working [inaudible 00:03:45]
.
Sophie Aziakou – Translating:
I come from the documentary world and I think I’m going to go back to it because it’s less long. So when I did my first film, I didn’t think of myself as a filmmaker. I had a music in my mind that I wanted to bring to life. So I wanted to show African culture in a different light. When I thought about people judged our culture a lot of the time and I wanted to portray it in a different light.
So the first film, it featured the tattooing of the gums and I was producing the film myself. And so when the actress didn’t want to go through with it because of the pain, so I decided to do it myself. So they called me an uprooted person, but it was important for me to represent my culture, and I decided to get the tattoo done.
And when I showed the film in France, they always said, “You’re the filmmaker.” But I said, “I’m not the director. I’m doing this to show my culture.”
Festival Director Karen McMullan:
Who has read the book here? I’d like to know, it’s so hard to adapt a book, especially a well-known book to the screen. And just if you could talk a bit about things that you’ve had to keep out or things you really wanted to emphasize because you had to make some hard choices.
Sophie Aziakou – Translating:
It wasn’t easy because everyone around me had read the book and loved the book, and everyone wanted me to do their long letter. It was very hard for me to detach myself from the letters. There are some beautiful parts of the letter and especially as women, there are certain parts of the letter that we carry with us throughout life. I had to detach myself from the letters and to an extent kill my love for the letters. And it was a painful process.
Women that I didn’t know across these 12 years would call me and say, “What are you doing with the long letter?” They would tell me their lives about being polygamous women and they would tell me their pain and their suffering. I said, “You don’t know me. Why are you telling me about your lives?” The women that were sharing their stories wanted to transfer the stories to the actresses and to her, so that they could carry it throughout the film.
A quick story: A famous feminist woman in Senegal who gives us all strength, and you couldn’t have known that she had gone through this. Her son kept telling me that his mother wanted to see her and I didn’t understand why. I knew her from television, but that’s it. And she told me that she had suffered for 40 years from the polygamy that she experienced at the time. We laughed together, we cried together. We were so close that the children were wondering, “You barely know each other. How are you so close?”
So I carried these experiences with me and I think you can see it in the making of the film and in Ramatoulaye’s character.
Festival Director Karen McMullan:
This book is on many lists of 25 or top books that you must read in feminist literature. And I think it’s wonderful that you’re bringing it more publicity. Regarding relationships, like the one you were talking about with this woman in Senegal that women have, this story is as much about relationships with women as it is about with men. You have the deception between Dalla and Nitu, who were very good friends but the pressures pulled them apart. And then you have the more enduring and sustaining relationships between Rama and Aissatou. Can you talk a little bit more about how women’s relationships are influenced by the societal pressures and by the Muslim faith?
Sophie Aziakou – Translating:
If we want the inequalities in society to change, we women have to take responsibility and change because it’s we that transmit it from generation to generation. There’s always a grandmother or an aunt who’s going to pressure you to get married. But as we saw, marriage doesn’t always bring happiness. And it’s about being a woman first. A woman who is independent has as much value as a woman who is married.
Festival Director Karen McMullan:
Another issue you brought up in the film or we see in the film is the issue of class and societal rank. So we see that Rama is able to refuse a second marriage because she has financial independence, whereas Nitu had fewer choices. Can you talk a little bit more about that and if you think that the situation is changing in modern-day Senegal?
Director Angele Diabang:
For sure it’s easier when you have a financial situation to refuse. If you don’t have it like Nitu and your mom and all the family are putting pressure, you don’t have a choice. Rama has the choice because he’s a teacher. She have a tutor who can help. So [French 00:15:42] independence for Rama. Nitu was not. Nitu didn’t have it. Until now, it’s [French 00:15:58]
Sophie Aziakou – Translating:
Now polygamy is progressing, whereas it was stopping a couple of years ago, but now it’s picking up. We have a polygamist president and prime minister.
Director Angele Diabang:
It was a joke, but it’s coming again in [inaudible 00:16:28]. And also, [French 00:16:32]
Sophie Aziakou – Translating:
Women say when they’re the second wife, they have more time for themselves.
Director Angele Diabang:
Because when the man is there, you can have your time [inaudible 00:16:38] breath and do what you want. With them it was…
Sophie Aziakou – Translating:
Women in a polygamous marriage have more time for themselves. If the husband was there all the time, they wouldn’t have that much time to themselves. I have a friend who told me that she convinced her husband to stay one week with the other woman and then one week at home with her instead of two days at a time. Tradition tells you that your husband is like a God walking on earth. So in this case, you have a week to yourself to relax.
Festival Director Karen McMullan:
I’m going to open it up to the audience, if anyone has any questions?
Audience Speaker 5:
I would like to know, you said it hasn’t shown in Senegal yet. Do you think it will? And if it does, do you think it will have some repercussions with regard to the religion? For example, when Sembene did Xala there was issues, but they tried to make it be semantic, but it wasn’t semantic. It was, in other words, political. So how do you think the reaction is going to be to this film when it’s shown in Senegal, if it’s shown in Senegal, especially since the leadership is polygamous.
Festival Director Karen McMullan:
I’ll just repeat the question for those in the back. The question in summary is do you think it will show in Senegal and what do you think the reaction will be, especially given by the government [inaudible 00:19:25] right now?
Sophie Aziakou – Translating:
I think the film is really anticipated in Senegal right now because it was on social media.
Director Angeele Diabang:
No, not on social media. I wanted to say that on social media we can feel that they are waiting for the film because everyone is writing or talking about the film and telling, “Oh, when are you showing it in Senegal?” They want to show it in July.
Audience Speaker5
But the question was what do you think the reaction is going to be, especially from government and from religious leaders?
Director Angele Diabang:
Exactly.
Sophie Aziakou – Translating:
I don’t think there will be issues. I don’t think so. I hope not. I hope women will complain if there are issues. I try to be clever in the making of the film to avoid any issues with the government or with religious figures. I bring up in the movie the point about following the Quran, and if you can’t respect the Quran then you shouldn’t record. I took out in the scene at the beginning where they were touching each other. I had to cut it short because it was going a bit too far. It was too erotic. So the book is taught in middle school, so I wanted to make it accessible to children and I accepted to remove those parts.
So I made a short film about a Muslim woman and a priest, and the Muslim woman goes into the monastery and has a child with the priest. That, I wasn’t able to show that [inaudible 00:23:08]. I did show it in the French Institute. But both Catholics and Muslims were not happy.They wanted to do a screening with religious figures from Christianity and Islam and I said, “No, I don’t want to do it. I’m going to show it around the world, but I don’t want to do that because then every other film, for future films that come out they’re going to ask me to do that.”
Director Angele Diabang:
All the director, you know? [French 00:24:15]
Sophie Aziakou – Translating:
Not just me, but other directors as well.
Director Angele Diabang:
So I accepted not to show it.
Sophie Aziakou – Translating:
So I accepted not to show it, yes.
Festival Director Karen McMullan:
I think we have time for one more.
Audience Speaker 6:
Hi, I loved the film. It was so beautiful. I loved the way you shot everything. It was so hilarious, like editing. Everything was amazing, like some film [inaudible 00:24:45] The question I have is kind of similar to the questions you brought up around, like the things you bought. The question I have is similar to the religious stuff you were talking about.
I feel like in Senegal the culture is very synchronistic, so sometimes people don’t realize that you can have Islam, but you still have synchronistic traditions embedded in that. How were you able to keep that balance in the film while you were making it, translating the book to make it more contemporary? How were you able to keep that balance?
Sophie Aziakou – Translating:
It was easy to show, like with the woman who [inaudible 00:25:40]
It’s very embedded in the culture and I always make offerings to the ancestors before a film. The [inaudible 00:26:37] is part of the culture, whether you’re Christian or Muslim,
Festival Director Karen McMullan – And that is all the time we have. Thank you all for coming.
A Roundup of Postulations, Comments, Opinions, Reviews Et. Al. of Cinematic Aficionados, Pundits, Critics & the Like About Their Take on SO LONG A LETTER
Opening Night Saturday, May 24 was the North American premiere of SO LONG A LETTER (2025), a majestic cinematic adaptation by Angele Diabang of Mariama Ba’s critically acclaimed novel from the 70s. Ramatoulaye’s husband of 30 years marries a 20-year-old woman, Binetou, savagely humiliating Ramatoulaye who falls into a period of mourning and introspection – as wel as writing a heartfelt letter to a lifelong friend, Aissatou. It is through this letter writing that the film explores themes of love, betrayal, female solidarity, and the tension between tradition and modernity in Senegalese society. Brener’s direction is lauded for its nuanced portrayal of Ramatoulaye’s internal struggle and the societal pressures she faces. Performances are compelling and the lead actress delivers a portrayal that captures the character’s dignity and resilience of personal turmoil in which she has limited leverage. The film’s pacing allows for a deep emotional connection, mirroring the introspective nature of the original epistolary novel.
The cinematography captures the vibrancy of Dakar, juxtaposing the city’s dynamic environment with Ramatoulaye’s personal isolation. The film also reveals the cultural and religious practices of Senegal, providing a rich backdrop that enhances the narrative’s authenticity. This includes the depiction of the mourning period, known as ‘Iddah,’ and the societal expectations placed upon women.
SO LONG A LETTER has been praised for its faithful adaptation of Bâ’s novel, maintaining the original’s emotional depth and social commentary. Pundits, reviewers, cinematic aficionados applaud the film’s exploration of feminist themes and its relevance to contemporary discussions on women’s rights and societal roles in Africa. The film is a tribute to Bâ’s literary legacy and a standalone piece that resonates with modern audiences.
Angèle Diabang Brener’s SO LONG A LETTER is a poignant and thought-provoking film that successfully translates Mariama Bâ’s literary work to the screen. Through its compelling narrative, strong performances, and cultural authenticity, the film offers a profound exploration of women’s experiences in Senegalese society, making it a significant contribution to African cinema.
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