It all begins in the dark. Rosine Mbakam returns to Yaoundé after seven years in Europe. The story is told from here. Into the darkness and out of it.
She reunites with her mother and asks her: »What is cinema for you?« – »Cinema is things you film and everyone can watch. Things that sometimes happen right in front us. Or things that we will never see that are shown to us.« Mâ Brêh, Mbakam’s mother, grew up in rural Cameroon during the time of the maquis, the struggle for independence against French colonial rule. At 18, she married a man she had never met before. She bore him children and lived for a while with her husband’s second wife. Later, she became a market trader. She endured the loss of a son and then of her husband.
Mbakam explores the distance between herself and her mother, but also the things they share. Since leaving Cameroon, she has become a mother herself. Returning home, she introduces her son, reconnects with rituals not practiced by European women after childbirth and steps back into the role of youngest daughter again. At a gathering with her mother’s sisters, the women reflect on their marriages. »Is it a problem that I married a European?« Mbakam asks. »Not at all! What matters most is that you love each other. You’ll get to know his traditions.«
Her meeting with her mother is both a search for influences from her past, but also for affirmation of the unique path she has forged. In her debut feature-length documentary, Mbakam delves deep into the history of her family and thus also into social and political entanglements, with a profound respect for the stories left untold. Lights shine even in the darker moments.