Ajyal Film Club
A 14-year-old contortionist in Conakry balances training with caring for her ill mother and keeping up at school. As one of the few girls in a boys’ acrobatic troupe, she dreams of joining the next tour, yet the more expectations gather, the more she questions what she truly wants. Blending documentary with hints of the fantastical, the film listens closely to daily life, where folklore brushes reality, and traces a tender, complex path towards self-determination.
A 14-year-old contortionist in Conakry balances training with caring for her ill mother and keeping up at school. As one of the few girls in a boys’ acrobatic troupe, she dreams of joining the next tour, yet the more expectations gather, the more she questions what she truly wants. Blending documentary with hints of the fantastical, the film listens closely to daily life, where folklore brushes reality, and traces a tender, complex path towards self-determination.
A gifted teenager trains as a contortionist with a local troupe while caring for her ill mother and trying to keep pace at school. She is one of the only girls in the group; as the next big tour draws closer, so does the pull of expectation. What begins as a straightforward observational portrait becomes a richer exploration of how emancipation actually happens through effort, hesitation and the courage to ask whether a dream is truly one’s own. The film addresses that question patiently, allowing doubt, discipline, and desire to coexist.
Hybrid in form, the work reflects a world where fantasy and reality often intertwine. Magic-realist touches are less escape than translation, visual ways of expressing how bravery is imagined before it is lived. Rather than declaring empowerment, the film shows it: a body learning strength; a young woman developing; a family negotiating what is possible. Amid pressures of tradition, economics and social structures, the girl’s resolve is tested. She learns to hold competing truths: responsibility and ambition, family care and personal agency. What endures is not a single triumph but a growing capacity to decide, to refuse or to leap, and to carry the consequences with grace.
Hybrid in form, the work reflects a world where fantasy and reality often intertwine. Magic-realist touches are less escape than translation, visual ways of expressing how bravery is imagined before it is lived. Rather than declaring empowerment, the film shows it: a body learning strength; a young woman developing; a family negotiating what is possible. Amid pressures of tradition, economics and social structures, the girl’s resolve is tested. She learns to hold competing truths: responsibility and ambition, family care and personal agency. What endures is not a single triumph but a growing capacity to decide, to refuse or to leap, and to carry the consequences with grace.
