Sira
Director: Apolline Traoré
Writer: Apolline Traoré
Cast: Nafisatou Cisse, Mike Danon, Lazare Minoungou, Abdramane Barry, Ruth Werner, Ildevert Meda, Nathalie Vairac
Seen on: 21.3.2026

Content Note: rape

Plot:
Sira (Nafisatou Cisse) is on the way to get married. She is not alone, her entire tribe is part of the caravan through the desert to her fiancé’s village. The match is a love match, but it may also serve to protect the tribe from rising islamist violence. When they camp for the night, though, they are attacked. The men are slaughtered, and Sira finds herself first abducted, then raped and abandoned in the desert. But she is a survivor, and she fights.

I hadn’t heard of Sira until I saw No Mercy, and I was immediately curious about an African rape revenge film. So, when they showed the film as part of the screenings of No Mercy, I jumped at the chance to see it. Unfortunately, it didn’t work that well for me.

Before I go into why Sira didn’t work that much for me, let me say that part of it probably has to do with the fact that it was the third film I saw that day and the screening startet at 9.30pm, so pretty late. I am hardened from years of going to festivals, but I am a little out of practice and also, increasingly, old. So, that is surely part of it.

But it’s also not all of it. The movie starts well, if you will, with the way it quickly establishes and destroys Sira’s happiness. I also thought that the rape was interesting in how little the film and the rapist seemed interested in it. For the movie, it was clearly just a set-up to get past, and for the rapist, it was a corrective measure and nothing else. It’s a pretty cold way to look at it, but not without merit.

Sira’s fight for survival in the desert was also engaging, as well as Cisse’s performance, and tension was pretty high. But once she hides out in the cave, the film loses steam. I also had a problem with her pregnancy, or rather the fact that she was supposedly that long in that cave and never found some way of getting out of there? The timeframe felt really off, although I do appreciate that it led to the glorious image of her shooting a machine gun with a baby tied to her back.

But I started to nod off in the end, and I was not particularly sad about that, I have to admit, preferring the sleep to watching the resolution – that seemed pretty predictable anyway – unfold in its entirety.

Summarizing: I had hoped for more.