Marc Zinga

When ten-year-old Birahima’s mother dies, he leaves his native village in Guinea, accompanied by the sorcerer and cook Yacouba, to search for his aunt Mahan. Crossing the border into Liberia, they are seized by rebels and forced into military service. Birahima becomes a child-soldier. Fighting in a chaotic civil war alongside many other boys, Birahima sees death, torture, dismemberment and madness but somehow manages to retain his own sanity.

In Belgium today, a young boy and an adolescent girl who have travelled alone from Africa pit their invincible friendship against the difficult conditions of their exile.

1975. When Seyolo Zantoko, a doctor from the Congo who has managed, along with his family, to flee tyranny, is hired by the mayor of a small town in northern France, he begins a struggle to adapt to a new life and gain the trust of the prejudiced villagers.

Three war-torn strangers posing as a family flee Sri Lanka’s civil war to start over in a troubled Paris suburb, but their past traumas resurface as they struggle to survive in their new environment.