The Fragile Light of Acceptance in Senegal's Queer Cinema Aymar Esse's "My Father's Kora" premiered at Locarno's Open Doors section as a Benin Switzerland Germany co production.
The film follows Souleymane Everston Adowo Freudenreich, an Afro German trans man, as he travels to Dakar, Senegal, to repair his father's kora, a traditional instrument that holds significant cultural weight.
Born from the Mandingue world, the kora carries a long history of transmission, memory, and poetry. For Esse, the instrument "carries a profoundly living voice" that connects generations, past, and present.