Director

Cheick Oumar Sissoko

Cast list

Diarrah Sanogo as Saran--Mother
Chaka Diarra as Chakka
Macire Kante as Kalifa
Ada Thiocary as Fanta
Alikaou Kante as Karim

Credits

Producer: Mamadou Kaba

Synopsis

Little Kalifa (Macire Kante) is not allowed into school on the first day of classes because he is too poor to bring his desk with him. So the young, tough eight-year-old watches the other kids pushing and pulling their desks to school and decides to raise his own money to get his own desk; he does this by collecting garbage in his wagon. As he is busy with his garbage collecting, his aunt goes to the hospital to give birth but runs into complications. The doctors give her husband a prescription to get her the medicine she needs, not asking if he has any money. He does not. By the time he borrows the money it is too late, Kalifa's aunt has already died. This trend continues, with death and helplessness created by poverty and the indifference of local institution.-New York Times

Academic Articles:

Alternating Views By Sow, Aliou.  Africa Today, Volume 55, Number 4, Summer 2009

Popular Culture and Oral Traditions in African Film By Diawara, Manthia. Film Quarterly   Vol. 41, No. 3, Spring, 1988, pp. 6-13

Trash, African Cinema From Below from Harrow, W. Kenneth 2013 pp. Introduction

New Perspectives in African Cinema: An Interview with Cheick Oumar Sissoko, by Manthia Diawara, Elizabeth Robinson. Film Quarterly. Vol. 41 No.2 Winter 1987-1998. pp. 43-48