Karmen Gei

Senegalese director Joseph Gai Ramaka re-imagines Georges Bizet's oft-filmed opera CARMEN--from Preminger's CARMEN JONES to MTV's CARMEN: A HIP-HOPERA--in a joyously sensual, colorful musical set in modern-day Dakar. Karmen Gei (Ramaka's wife, Djeinaba Diop Gai), a stately beauty in tribal robes, leaps and shakes to primal drummers in the seaside town's square, surrounded by cheering townswomen, and trains her seductive powers on Angelique (Stephanie Biddle), the prison warden. When Karmen is arrested, a steamy assignation with Angelique wins her release. Once free, Karmen rapidly sings and dances her way to another conquest--this time, of a high-ranking army officer, Lamine Diop (Magaye Niang). With her endemic charisma and dangerous sexuality, Karmen achieves Lamine's downfall instantaneously--he soon finds himself demoted and jailed. Meanwhile, Karmen's voracious appetite leads her to a new suitor, wealthy balladeer Massigi (El Hadj Ndiaye), who literally sings her out of Lamine's bed. While planning a job with some criminal friends, Karmen has a vision of women in whiteface, the death's head--a warning that her carefree life may be in danger. With primeval drumbeats, haunting music, and a screen-commanding performance by Diop Gai, Ramaka provides a sensual new twist on the Carmen myth.

Cast:

"...Beguiling and peppery....Enormously likeable, partly because it is aware of its own grasp of the absurd..." -- Elvis Mitchell , (New York Times)

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