The African Doctor

Details

Seyolo, originally from Congo, graduates as a physician in France, in 1973. As he doesn't want to go back to Africa and work for a dictator, he takes the opportunity to work as a rural doctor in a French village where there's 95% cows and only 5% people. Back in the Congo, he tells his family, and everyone is really pleased with the news! Anne, his wife, even believes they'll live in Paris. Seyolo doesn't dare to tell her the truth... When they arrive at the village, under a gloomy sky out in the middle of nowhere, everyone's disappointed. The inhabitants fear them, as they've never seen Africans before. Nothing happens the way Seyolo had imagined... His practice remains desperately empty. Kamini, his youngest child, has no friends at school except for a ginger boy who, like him, is rejected by the others. Kiessé soon has to deal with the school's bully. And Anne becomes seriously depressed. Only Seyolo is determined to succeed. On the one hand, he tries to win the trust of the villagers, get closer to them and their interests, and on the other, he attempts to instil the principles of integration in his family. They must be beyond reproach and set an example. But then his Congolese "cousins" from Brussels visit them and terrorise the inhabitants, thus shattering the little trust Seyolo has gained...