The gold rush to the gold village with goldpeople...and a gold woman

Footages extract from the "goldpeolple" shooting

Mama Sissoko

The story of Mama Sissoko has started two years ago when I was gathering documentation for a movie in West Africa.

The woman was cleaning small village of gold in Senegal. That's where I've also slept.

The screams in the middle of the gold village in the morning as well as washing dogs around miners was like a performance.

This moment has changed my life. I've stayed for 10 more days as I was intrigued by this lady...

Synopsis

People from all around West Africa come to Bantaco in Senegal every year during the dry season to try their lucky in finding gold. Mama Sissoko is responsible for cleaning central point in the village.

Children and adults work in an extreme condition, temperature often reaches 40 degrees heat, they don't have proper equipment so they use mercury to find gold. This cause huge risk to the workers health, brings disease but also allows for growth of prostitution. However Mama Sissoko is not interested in finding gold or that kind of life...

She is constantly fighting against people who don't care about health issues and she tries to keep some control over the sanitary standards of the village.

When she is not trying to improve workers safety conditions and their health, she takes care of her many dogs, growths herbs and help prostitutes with their health issues.

She is alone, one soul against all. Everyone else care only about the gold and that's why the village exists.

The story will be 66 minutes long, balancing between documentary and fiction. Mama Sissoko will be our guide inside the dirty world obsessed with gold.

The gold vilage

at some points she will take the camera to show us how strong she is when she heals prostitution with her herbs or by sacrifice of a chicken. She shows how brave she is when fighting with people about over they dirty lifestyle, but sometimes she seams lost like a child in the fog, when she is tired of constant fight with world around her. . .

Hitcham and the lucky boy

...and her antagonist character is Hitcham. Man who left his wife in Mali and arrived to Bantaco looking for a gold. He is concentrated on earning a lot of money but the soil is not good to him. He is depressed because he can't have a baby and he is separated from his wife.

On the other hand Mama Sissoko is playing burlesque acts to keep life more happy.

Luckily that the village has children, who are surrounding Mama Sissoko and they found gold during spontaneous play in the river...

Documentation about Mama Sissoko - Hitcham - The lucky boy and the gold

Hitcham3 Bandaco3 Fire Mamaafrica1 Boy9

Goldgigger1 Gold

Bambo

Goldpeople

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