Andrew Dosunmu is always on the move. I first met him here in New York City when he had just returned from South Africa where he had shot a few episodes for the second season of the popular TV series “Yizo Yizo.” (At the time, I was organizing a film festival.) Shortly afterwards, by chance, I ran into him on the subway. He was plotting to make a feature about female bank robbers in Lagos. Then I got invited to a reading for a story about complicated family relations in an African immigrant clan in the Bronx that he had workshopped at Sundance Lab. Neither project came off. Which is fine, since that frustration led him to take the initiative and make his most recent film, “Restless City.” I finally got to see it this summer (at the Urban World Film Festival). The story, part American dream narrative, revolves around a young West African immigrant, Djibril, who lives in Harlem, trying to start his record career, while selling CDs and delivering packages and mail on his moped. Djibril (played by Sy Alassane) falls for a beautiful woman, Trini (Nicole Grey), who also happens to be a prostitute. Djibril wants to rescue her from her pimp, with devastating consequences. But the narrative is only part of the story. This film is also about how New York City is framed. This is a beautiful but hard city for the growing African immigrant population who reside in its margins. And the city is a star of the film; whether the small uptown apartments, subway cars, dance clubs, hairdressers, etcetera. The actors speak in Wolof, English, French and Yoruba. The pace is slow but engaging, there’s a certain lyricism to it, it’s beautifully shot (that’s the work of director of photography Bradford Young), it is stylish (the costume designer is Mobolaji Dawodu of The Fader) and it has a soundtrack of Don Cherry‘s jazz.
In my book it is the best African film this year.
