WÙLU, 2016, Daouda Coulibaly, Mali/France, 95 min.
With filmmaker Daouda Coulibaly in Person!
Without doubt one of the most impressive debut features of recent years, WÙLU confirms the talent its director Daouda Coulibaly showed in his earlier shorts. Ladji, played by impressive newcomer Ibrahim Koma, works as a driver, transporting passengers in beat-up van, realizes that things stand he’ll never get anywhere in life. Moreover, he’ll never be able to save his younger sisters from a life of prostitution into which she seems to be slipping. So one day he askes his boss if there might be “other” work for him, and soon Ladji becomes enmeshed in operations carrying contraband across borders. A taut thriller, WÙLU is especially effective at showing how easily young people can caught up in schemes from which they discover there really is no escape.
