E.D.I. Films, Scope Pictures, Moana Films present Marc Zinga (Seyolo), Aissa Maiga (Anne), Beyron Lebli (Kamini), Madina Diarra (Sivi), Rufus Jean (Jean- Benoit Ugeux) Le Maire. Director, Guillaume; Producers, Olivier Delbose, Marc Missonnier, Libronddiere; Executive Producer, Charistine De Jekel; Screenplay by Julien Rambaldi. (c) 2016
The title is not as common in any part of the world than in America, where African Doctors are making serious inroads into the medical field. But this is true life; a one hour thirty minutes inspirational story of an African Doctor in France.
I once saw a disabled man who got off his wheelchair and walked himself into a grocery. I asked him how he got up and walked into the store, “My African Doctor hooked me up.” He said. “What is his name? I asked. “Don’t know, but he’s African Doctor, very gud peoples,” he said wheeling away in his chair. ‘African Doctor,’ is all the Americans know about medical practitioners from Africa in America. They may never call their Doctors by his real name. ‘African Doctor’ is enough. And they love them, once they put behind the thin veil of racial discrimination. African Doctors are kind to them. Some African Doctors even help them out with roots and herbs for ailments.
This African Doctor, Seyolo Zantoka (Marc Zinga), a recent graduate from medical school in France, receives a call from his friend in Congo, where he’s hailing from, that Mobutu of Congo wants him to come home. “The President wants you to be a personal doctor to him.” He asked how assuring this person is, “Mobutu can eat from the palm of my hand,” the person had confirmed. “Be careful; Mobutu will eat your hand,” Seyolo sarcastically joked. Seyolo hates the greediness and tortures of African leaders and didn’t want any part of it. He instead takes the practice with Marlyne, a small village in Northern France, and sends for his wife and two kids from Congo to join him.
The family arrived on a passenger bus in a rainstorm and dropped them at a desolate junction. Not long the Mayor gets there, welcomes them, and helps them with their luggage. They walk half a mile to their new home. Anne (Aissa Maiga), is greatly disappointed in the decision of her husband to settle in a village with less than five hundred people. The family of four Africans in a French village, as Aissa’s sight, beholds. Residents peer in the windows at them, and the cows, moo at them passing. Most people stand away from their paths, and almost everyone is, “wow” at their presence. They have never seen Blacks so close and personal
With his relationship in the pub, he makes the first appointment with a patient to take the chair in his clinic. And he goes home to his wife, happy. At the end of the treatment, the two patients referred him to the government to pay the bills. Things were hard for the Doctor and his family, and this depresses them a lot. Anne wants them to move over to Belgium as they are only three hours away. But when the French villagers gathered at the cemetery to commemorate the soldiers who died in world war one, three loaded cars full of Congolese (Africans) relatives from Brussels in the spirit of the commemoration of world war one pull up, the village folks were amazed. The African visitors were happy and celebrating the memory of the Congolese who died fighting for France in the same war, and to cheer up their African relatives in the village. For the first time, villagers see Africans in well dressed European attires and in such a large group.
At the clinic, Seyolo help delivers a baby. Just when Seyolo starts feeling a little comfortable, he gets caught in the crosshairs of the town’s local politics- Mayoral election. In an impending Mayoral election, the contender wants to bring in a White doctor to replace the African one, since the villagers aren’t still comfortable with Black. And immigration serves Seyolo deportation papers. The news broke out at the pub, at the market, and the school. But it happens that the African Doctors daughter, Sivi partake of the local soccer match and proves to be excellent and the only player who in fact scores so many goals against the opposing team. The French past time is soccer and they worship good ones like Sivi. Seyolo tells everybody in the village the contender in the election doesn’t want them, and he’s behind the deportation orders.
The Le Maire wins the election, and Soyolo gains a residency and French nationality. The people love him and his family. The town gave them more patients that even his wife gets employed as a secretary in the clinic. In 2008, Seyolo received the medal of merit for service to the village. Unfortunately, in 2009, Dr. Seyolo Zantoko died in an auto accident at night while on his way to attend to a patient, and was buried in the town cemetery. His wife moved to Brussels, and Sivi and her brother got nursing degrees and lived in France.
There are numerous challenges the movie put forward for both the doctor and his family, and the town to overcome. The village was not prepared to receive a Black family in their midst. Of course, the Mayor did announce about the new doctor he got from the university graduation list, but himself was not overwhelmed by the choice. No doctor has ever stayed in the town because of its remoteness. It’s a compromise between him and Seyolo, who couldn’t go home to Congo, but to remain in the Western world to give his children the opportunity for better education, and to get French papers. The Mayor too had to live with the choice because he needed a medical professional in the village.
The African Doctor and his wife Anne had their separate war too. Anne wanted them to move over to Brussels, where she had lots of relatives and the Congolese community. And she in fact frequently leaves for Brussels, until her husband settles in, gains French nationality for all of them, and business in the clinic picks up. She is there in the village the day her daughter Sivi outshines all soccer players on the field, and she’s happy.
Anne, “ What were you thinking about bringing us here, no buildings, no stores?
Seyolo, “Darling…”
Anne, “Never call me that again.”
Seyolo, “For now I have dispensation to work, and soon, I’ll have papers, and nothing can stop me opening an office in Paris. I had to start somewhere, and we’re lucky to be in France. Anything is possible. Our kids will go to school, and it’s a small village, they’ll settle in quickly. (to his children) You could reach the Ivy Leagues, and even become President of France. As a child, I had nothing. No mother, no father, but today, I’m a doctor…It’s down to hard work. Only education matters, especially when you are black.” Anne finds out the truth and stayed by her husband.
The school children staged an end of the year play which turned out to be a microcosmic enactment of the story in itself. In the stageplay, his little son, Kamini (Bayron Lebli), acts as the African Doctor, who helps the villagers with their medical problems; helps deliver babies. In the midst of it, he’s arrested by immigration and detained—the villagers then petition for his release, and he gets granted French nationality. Shortly after the stageplay, and election, the town petition to the government so that their beloved African Doctor gets French citizenship. He was, and to this day, his grave lies in the village. This is a story of discrimination, perseverance, and unconditional love and care for people.