Sarraounia

The real-life figure of Queen Sarraounia, a turn-of-the-last-century leader of the Anza people in Lougou, Niger who, in 1899, led a tactically brilliant military resistance against French colonialist powers, is the subject of Hondo's scrupulously researched historical drama, based on Abdoulaye Mamani's book of the same title, which focuses in turn on Aï Keïta's young warrior queen and her French foes, their leadership filled with puffed-up would-be conquistadors.