Rotterdam Film Festival winner Cyrielle Raingou (“Le Spectre de Boko Haram”) has secured French backing for “Pour toi je reviendrai” (I’m Coming for You), which tells the story of a single mother in northern Cameroon who joins forces with a radical group of women after being cast out of her community. Raingou is pitching the project this week at the Durban FilmMart.
The film will be produced by Raingou and Alice Abah for the director’s Cameroon-based shingle Je Capture Ma Réalité, along with French producer Jean-Marie Gigon’s SaNoSi Productions. Gigon’s credits include Gessica Généus’ Haitian drama “Freda,” which was the island nation’s submission for the 2022 Academy Awards, and Maciek Hamela’s Ukrainian war documentary “In the Rearview,” which was Oscar short-listed this year.
Pic will also be co-produced by Canal+, which has acquired the film for Africa, Haiti and French overseas departments and territories. French rights are still available.
“I’m Coming for You,” which is the director’s fiction feature debut, follows Kaltoumi, a young mother and engineer who lives in a patriarchal society with a strong belief in magic. Burning with desire to enjoy a freedom that most women in her community are deprived of, she buys a motorbike that she drives around the Sahel, away from prying eyes.
Abandoned by her husband and raising her three-month-old daughter alone, Kaltoumi is forced to traffic goods with terrorists from the militant group Boko Haram, hiding in the vastness of the Sahelian region between Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria. But her criminal activities are brought to light by a village chief, who seizes her baby and casts a crippling spell on her.
Cast out from her community, she sets off on a journey to find a miraculous cure, joining forces with a radical group of women who fight against terrorists and any form of society that places women under the absolute domination of men.
Speaking to Variety in Durban, Raingou said her sophomore film is “paying tribute to women,” adding: “No matter what box society is trying to lock you in, you can definitely decide who you want to be. That’s what my film is about. You have to take power. They’re not going to give it to you. You have to take it and be who you want to be.”
The film comes on the heels of Raingou’s heralded debut — the first African film to win Rotterdam’s Tiger Award — which follows three schoolchildren in northern Cameroon living on the periphery of a war waged by the notorious militant group of its title. “Spectre” was described by Variety’s Murtada Elfadl as “a clear-eyed look at how everyday life and the accompanying humdrum tasks go on despite the threat of violence at any moment.”
“I’m Coming for You” was inspired by the director’s experience while shooting that film and interacting with women in the far north of her native Cameroon. “I noticed how resilient, but also inventive, they can be in that space where nothing is possible [for women],” Raingou said. The precarity of life in the arid Sahel region, she explained, has forced many to do business with the very Islamic militants who have been terrorizing their communities for years.
“I drew inspiration from the reality of these women who living in very patriarchal and conservative societies that are just trying to reduce them, who in real life are more than just women who [can be placed in a] box, who are very dynamic,” she said. “It’s a project where women have two antagonists, terrorism and the patriarchy, that are coming together to oppress them. And they are trying to find a way to break free.”
“I’m Coming for You” has received awards and production grants from the Organization of La Francophonie (OIF), the Kirch Foundation, FILMAC, Visions Sud Est and the French Institute of Cameroon, and has presold to Canal+ and Chad national broadcaster Télé Tchad. Raingou, who is searching for a sales agent, potential co-producers in Northern Europe and distributors in North America, Europe and Asia, hopes to begin filming at the start of 2025.
The Durban FilmMart runs from July 19 – 22.
