Cameroon / 1995 / 52mins / Documentary / French

Asientos means "something acquired, agreed." It was in the form of asientos, or licenses, that Spain in the 16th century entrusted European companies with the organization of the slave trade. In the century since the end of the deportation of Africans to the New World, a young African, traumatized by the violence that he still sees, takes refuge in his imagination in the sacred places of the slave trade on the isle of Gorèe. Asientos is a journey through memory that goes to the heart of the sorrow and suffering of the history of black people.

Francois Woukoache

François Woukoache was born in 1966 in Yaounde, Cameroon. He studied mathematics, science, and cinema at the University of Paris VII. In 1989, Woukoache continued his film studies at INSAS in Brussels. While there, he made several short films: Une Nuit et des Jours dans la Ville, Feuilles Morte, and Melina, which won awards at festivals in Amiens, Milan, and Paris in 1992. Between 2013 and 2016, he coordinated the Faces of Life project, which trains Rwandan women from disadvantaged backgrounds to use the visual arts as a means of critical expression and social transformation. His latest film, Ntarabana, a documentary feature, follows the work he has been doing in Rwanda for over fifteen years and concludes a triptych on Rwanda post 1994: We Are No Longer Dead, Icyizere, Ntarabana. Learn More