The city is preparing for the start of the new school year. From morning to night, Mambar Pierette sews school uniforms and elegant dresses for special occasions in her small store in a suburb of Douala, Cameroon. Mambar is not only a seamstress, but also a confidante to her customers. She knows all about money worries and heartache, family matters and the problems of emigrants and returnees. But she also has worries of her own: floods in the house and in the store, an absent husband, a sick mother, three children who need school supplies, and there is never enough money. Time and again she has to overcome setbacks and disasters. She copes with her situation with stoic calm and refuses to accept injustice and oppression. Her hard-earned independence and the sense of community in her neighborhood give her strength.

Building on her acclaimed 2018 documentary Chez Jolie Coiffure about the African diaspora in a Brussels hairdressing salon, Rosine Mbakam’s feature film debut presents the fictionalized experiences of her charismatic protagonist sensitively and empathetically to reflect the hardships of everyday life in Cameroon.(ML)