“Border” is an African film directed by Apolline Traore. The film was originally cast in French as “Frontiers’” in 2017. The film was cast in France and Burkina Faso, and sales agent is Orange Studio. The genre of the film is fiction showing a journey of four women from three countries and the development of their friendships along the journey. Christian Billette did the film editing, and background music is by Cyril Morin. The cast of the film is by Amelie Mbaye and Naky Sy Savane. The organizations involved in the production of the film are Araucania Films and Les Films Selmon. The film featured in the Pan African Festival of Cinema and Television in Ouagadougou. Another aspect of the film is its theme of the empowerment of women and elimination of discrimination against women in the African cultures.

The film started with a trip by Hadjara (Amelie Mbaye), a Senegalese who is travelling to Lagos to make purchases for a women’s association that she is part of and along the way to Lagos; she makes friendships with other women. The first woman that she befriends is Amma, a role played by Naky Sy Savane, an Ivorian trader who has engaged in the business for the past fifteen years. Additionally, the two women make friendship with Micha (Unwana Udobang) a Nigerian travelling back to her country for a sister’s wedding and a family get-together. Finally, the three are joined in the bus by a student of Bobo-Dioulasso named Sali (Adizetou Sidi) headed to Nigeria’s capital of Lagos where she trades drugs for her fiancée.

The four women involved in the film are on a journey along the gorgeous landscape of West Africa states from Mali to Nigeria via Burkina Faso and Benin the women use a bus and pass through the four countries’ coastal and Sahelian regions. However, along with the journey, the women encounter different challenges such as traffic jams, bus problems, in different cities, robberies fight, and corruption and violence from border customs officers. Afraid and disappointed, the three women join forces to deal with the different encounters along the journey since they are headed to the same destination. The film is a funny drama that shows how women, if united, can be empowered and deal with the problems that affect their lives. The film also shows the challenges that people in West Africa countries go through because of lack of cooperation between the countries, thereby affecting movement of people and business transactions between the countries. The issue of lack of women empowerment is a major theme that the producers want to show the world and help in dealing with the problem.

The main issues that the women have to deal with include ability of strangers to join forces and deal with the problem of lack of empowerment. All the women elaborate to one another how un-free they are in their individual lives, and this gives them the courage to start the journey of women empowerment. Hadjara’s reveals to the groups that she is a victim of physical assault from her husband while Sali’s fiancée manipulates her and makes her trade drugs between Benin and Nigeria. The drug trafficking issue shows how the rogue authorities at the border use their powers to extort money and allow illegal trade. Men in “Lakassa,” which is the last feature in the film refuse to cultivate land and wait for handouts from foreign governments. Hadjara helps save Sali from sexual assault at the border and uses her sexuality to obtain a pass from Senegalese customs. The film is thus formed on the themes of women empowerment, women cooperation to achieve freedom from the shackles of men, and economic and political integration in West Africa.

Reaction on the Film
The film’s director is able to show that problems that affect women in Africa. With the use of the journey as an example of the real situations that women face, Traore can ensure that the theme of women empowerment is achieved. Women can be empowered by their aggressiveness to make the world of African woman a better one. Through cooperation and self-sacrifice, Hadjara saves Sali from the attempts of the border officials to force the young women into sexual intercourse against her will. On the other hand, the four women can face-off with the physical assaulters within the bus. Customs officials find it hard to engage in an altercation with the four women because they have joined forces. However, the real problem of violation of the women rights needs to be addressed through associations such as the one that Hadjara is engaged in in her home country.

The second most important issue in the film that should get a highlight in the African countries is the problem of movement across the borders. Although many view the movement from one continent to the other as a challenge, the film shows that even the movements between the neighboring countries are a problem. It is paramount officials and leadership in countries find a solution to the political and economic problems facing the people. For example, the journey from Mali to Lagos through Benin and Burkina Faso takes longer than anticipated because of the road problems and the way the officials at the borders put restrictions to get money from the travelers. Economic development between the countries cannot be ensured without free and open movement of people and goods between the countries.