STORY TIME: GOD’S GIFT

Directed by Gaston Kaboré

1982 / 75min

“WEND KUUNI is a landmark in African filmmakers’ attempts to ‘return to the sources’ of their culture, to recover a ‘usable’ African past to solve the problems of the African present. Kaboré adapts the measured rhythms of traditional African storytelling to create an authentically African cinematic language. He retells an ancient fable about a mute, memoryless orphan, driven from his homeland, who is renamed Wend Kuuni (‘God’s Gift’) by the grateful village which adopts him. Kaboré uses this simple tale to demonstrate that traditional Mossi values can still provide answers to many problems besetting modern Africa, fractured by rural dislocation, refugees, and political conflict.” –CALIFORNIA NEWSREEL