La forêt de Niolo: Villagers Against A Corrupt Leader

The film is about the Niolo valley, home to a luxuriant forest with natural resources

“La Forêt du Niolo” is one of the 2016 long feature films that made news during this year’s  Panafrican Festival of Cinema and Television of Ouagadougou, FESPACO 2017. With leading actors such as Cameroonian-born, Gerald Essomba, the Burkinabe film Director, Adama Roamba reveals the extent to which certain leaders can go to sacrifice their citizens because of a country’s natural resources.
The 90 minutes movie is about the Niolo valley, home to a luxuriant forest which is rich in natural resources, located at Burkina Faso. Because of the wealthy nature of the forest, a former Minister of Mines, Kader Traoré (Gerald Essomba) decides to get into an illegal deal to exploit the natural resources of the Niolo forest with some expatriates who pretend not to understand the language of the villagers. Kader Traoré began by telling the villagers to relocate from the village because of the existence of toxic gas. In a bid to convince the villagers relocate as soon as possible, Kader Traoré begins by using one of the villagers to poison a river which is used by the villagers for potable water. This, however, led to the dead of a girl which caused villagers to panic and wish to leave the village due to the toxic gas.
Things turned sour for Kader Traoré when the couple Aicha-Nathanaël (Aicha director of an NGO, Nature Verte and Nathanaël journalist) who figh...