About the title
2003. Chaka, Rafa, and Midnight are mercenaries — perhaps even thieves and killers, but here everything is relative. The best friends must transport valuable cargo, earned through blood and sweat, along with a live "extra," from point A to point B. Naturally, everything that can go wrong does, so they're forced to stop in the very town of Saloum and ask to spend the night at a vacationers' camp. Although the place is at the edge of the world, it immediately turns up a policeman, a girl who "knows everything but says nothing," a handful of actor-types — the full set. "Saloum" is a distinctly African film — not French, not American — even though the director has lived and worked in both Paris and Los Angeles. Having moved to Dakar, he set about fulfilling a dream from his youth. Ancient myths of a distant land, ever-present crime, a colonial past (or present?), social commentary — "Saloum" has a bit of everything, but it all works first and foremost in service of a gripping story; amid all of Herbulot's trees, he never loses sight of the forest.
