Two teenage boys star in Matteo Garrone’s passionate exposé of how greed, trauma and corruption drive the modern-day slave trade in would-be migrants

Matteo Garrone’s new film is part adventure story, part slavery drama; the slavery which did not in fact vanish with the end of the American civil war, but thrives in the globalised present day without needing to shapeshift too much, driven by the age-old forces of geopolitics and the market.

Seydou and Moussa, played by nonprofessional acting newcomers Seydou Sarr and Moustapha Fall, are 16-year-old cousins in Dakar, Senegal, dreaming of escape to the fabled land of the EU as refugees, where they expect to go viral and make a fortune as music stars like the people they’re watching on TikTok. For years they have been writing songs and secretly working on building sites while pretending to go to football practice, amassing cash savings which in the succeeding months they will hand over to various gangmasters, fixers and corrupt gun-wielding soldiers.

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Leftwinger one of a group of opposition politicians freed from prison 10 days before presidential ballot

Bassirou Diomaye Faye will be sworn in as Senegal’s youngest president on Tuesday, pledging reforms to build on his stunning election win only 10 days after he was released from prison.

The 44-year-old pan-Africanist leftwinger has never before held an elected office but several African leaders, including Nigeria’s Bola Ahmed Tinubu, are to attend the ceremony in the new town of Diamniadio, near the capital, Dakar.

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Bassirou Diomaye Faye promises to overhaul democracy in west African country blighted by corruption

Just 10 days before being elected president of Senegal, Bassirou Diomaye Faye was in prison.

Years of political turmoil have left the west African state’s democracy teetering on the brink of collapse, with deadly uprisings and the jailing of opposition figurescommonplace.

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Bassirou Diomaye Faye leads Amadou Ba, the candidate for the ruling party who has refused to concede, in the presidential vote

Senegal’s anti-establishment candidate appears to be closing in on victory in the country’s presidential election, an outcome that could steer the west African state in a radical new direction.

Early results show opposition candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye ahead, prompting several rivals to publicly concede defeat.

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Khady Mane dazzles as a young wife with a mind of her own in Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s poetic Palme d’Or-nominated debut feature

There are few characters more unsettling in cinema – or theatre, or literature for that matter – than a single-minded woman determined to shape her own destiny at any cost. It shouldn’t be so, obviously. Why can’t a woman exhibit the same drive and ruthlessness as her male counterparts? But as Anatomy of a Fall demonstrated, a strong, self-interested female character tends to be viewed by society (and by extension, the audience) as inherently suspect. In the case of Banel (a knockout performance from the mesmerising Khady Mane), the besotted wife of Adama (Mamadou Diallo), that suspicion is justified.

The Pulaar-language feature debut from French-Senegalese film-maker Ramata-Toulaye Sy, Banel & Adama has a sparse, fable-like quality and poisonous, creeping momentum. Dealing with a passionate love that tips into something darker, the story unfolds in a Senegalese rural community in which gender roles are firmly inscribed and tradition is a guiding force in the lives of the villagers.

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The Senegalese director’s debut movie, Banel and Adama, propelled her to the red carpet. She explains why she wanted to show the world its flawed lead character

Nearly a decade ago, when Ramata-Toulaye Sy sat down to write her graduation script at the end of a screenwriting degree, her goal was simple. “I wanted to tell the most beautiful and greatest African love story,” says the 37-year-old French Senegalese film-maker with a smile. “When I was growing up a lot of African stories were about misery, poverty, war. I wanted to say: we can have African stories about people falling in love.”

She pauses, her grin widening. “Most importantly, I wanted to write the story of how Juliet became Lady Macbeth.” It’s a description that nails the film she’s now directed, based on that script, Banel and Adama. A subversive feminist romance set in Senegal, it was the only film by a first-time director in the main competition at Cannes last year (pitting her against veterans Wes Anderson, Todd Haynes and Ken Loach in the running for the festival’s top prize).

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‘Crucial’ UN resolution attempts to avoid repeat of injustices produced by Africa’s fossil fuel sector

In an attempt to avoid the “injustices and extractivism” of fossil fuel operations, African leaders are calling for better controls on the dash for the minerals and metals needed for a clean energy transition.

A resolution for structural change that will prioritise equitable benefit-sharing from extraction, supported by a group of mainly African countries including Senegal, Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Chad, was presented at the United Nations environmental assembly in Nairobi on Wednesday and called for the sustainable use of transitional minerals.

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With millions set to vote in 2024, the continent’s future is in the hands of a younger generation disillusioned by the apparent failure of their elected leaders and stagnant economies

Djbril Camara remembers thinking it was the wildest demonstration yet, the thunderclap of teargas almost constant. Then a shocking new sound: the crack of a live bullet. Djbril scrambled to the roof of his apartment block.

Below, the protest had descended into pandemonium. People shrieking as they ran. Plumes of teargas billowed across the Niary Tally district of Dakar, Senegal’s capital.

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Student reportedly killed in the northern city of Saint-Louis while security forces and demonstrators clash in Dakar

Security forces and protesters have clashed in Senegal’s capital and other cities in the first widespread unrest over the delay to a presidential election that constitutes the one of the country’s most significant political crises to date.

Riot police in Dakar fired teargas, stun grenades and what appeared to be rubber bullets at large crowds of protesters who set up roadblocks, burned tyres and threw stones.

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