Funu-Jëm: A Documentary about the Kaani-Gui Troupe of Senegal

Funu-Jëm is a documentary focusing on the Kaani-Gui Troupe of St. Louis, Senegal, and the men and women who have founded and sustained this neighbourhood theatre and dance troupe. Funu-Jëm, which means, "Where do we go from here?" is the title of the play as well as the documentary. The film is sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts.

Kaani-Gui was formed over a decade ago when local football players began holding "soirees" in their neighbourhood to raise funds for new football uniforms and equipment. As the troupe drew attention for their Friday-night shows, a handful of members decided to explore new horizons and develop a play about AIDS. While their supervisors at the Association Sport et Culture Kaani-Gui denied their request to make a play about AIDS, the troupe members went about collecting information anyway, speaking with doctors, hospital workers, AIDS victims, and drug users. In time, they developed Funu-Jëm, a performance complemented by a dance group and drummers that depicts the unfortunate consequences of a business savvy father bringing HIV into his home.

The play provides the troupe with opportunities to educate local audiences who do not have to pay for the show about how HIV is transmitted. There are several instances in the play, which is available on the Funu-Jëm homepage, where characters are taught about transmission points, such as when the HIV-positive father, Jules, is educated by his doctor-friend about maintaining hygiene in his household, or when Jules’ son, Papis, is confronted with teenagers who are sharing needles. Such lessons are arranged within a series of musical passages, allowing observers to digest the information they have received, and associate such information with the experience of watching the performance.

The film, Funu-Jëm was presented for the first time on World AIDS Day 1994 with the permission of the mayor of Saint-Louis. As a result of the performance, the Senegalese Minister of Culture challenged national non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to write a play about AIDS, and to showcase their works in front of the President of the Republic in Dakar. Kaani-gui won the competition, and the reward was a national tour of villages to perform Funu-Jëm for their countrymen and women.

The documentary was inspired by the success of the Sengalese national tour. It captures Kaani-gui performing in small villages, during their rehearsal and while they are travelling. This depiction of the troupe is meant to serve as an educational tool for students and activists, as it depicts the grassroots agenda of a youth group struggling to make a difference, as well as the key lessons about HIV/AIDS transmission and its effect on the family unit.

July 31 2007 update: Director Jaime Longhi indicates that Funu-Jëm is being re-worked as a series of inter-locking sketches of the primary characters of the theater troupe, as well as an impressionist view of St. Louis, the group's home. The thrust of the film is "solidarity through art" in an impoverished, class-ridden, non-industrial setting.

Click here to view video clips from the documentary.