13/06/2025 - Zaven Najjar delivers a hard-hitting adaptation of Ahmadou Kourouma’s novel about the tribulations of a child soldier sucked into the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone

“My name is Birahima, I’m 12, I’m not afraid of anything at all. I am insolent like a goat’s drool and pale like a real bastard. I am cursed (...), I will tell you about my fucking life.” By choosing to adapt into animation the excellent novel by Ahmadou Kourouma for his debut feature Allah Is Not Obliged, French filmmaker of Lebanese origins Zaven Najjar (noticed in particular as artistic director on The Siren [+see also:
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Indeed, the geopolitical complexity and the unavoidably violent substrate of the subject of child soldiers at the heart of the civil wars that wreaked havoc in Liberia and Sierra Leone between 1989 and 2003 (with their very heavy toll of 300,000 deaths, millions of displaced people and more than 50,000 children enrolled) were delicate obstacles that the filmmaker overcame brilliantly, in a captivating, edifying and moving film unveiled in official competition at the 44th Annecy Animation Film Festival.

“You’ll even get a machine gun like in American films. Over there, children get rich like kings.” Forced by his grand-mother to leave his Guinean hometown of Togobala to join his aunt in Libera following the tragic death of his ill mother, young and turbulent Birahima falls under the spell of the beautiful words of his escort, Yacouba, who calls himself a witch doctor and a businessman. But the adventure takes a brutal and bloody turn when the duo is captured by a group from the NPFL (National Patriotic Front of Liberia) directed by the intimidating colonel Papa le bon (a fervent religious enthusiast) and including several child soldiers. Very quickly, Birahima wants to imitate the latter and discovers weapons, training, ambushes, drugs, alcohol, amulets, corpses, but also friendship with Tête brûlée, Kik, Sarah and Fati. A tight-knit family of young people hurt by life who will soon flee and rally, not without some cruel losses, the enemies of the Ulimo led by General Onika Barclay and controlling a diamond mine, But death continues to reign over Birahima’s fate (who will go as far as Sierra Leone), a child held prisoner by the violence of a vampiric world of murderous predators…

“When I close my eyes, I see war”. Transcribing like a funeral oration the trajectory leading to the loss of human sense, the director (who co-wrote the script with Karine Winczura) has managed to find the right balance between empathy towards his touching main character, the fierce realism of the context (“it steals, it kills and it amputates”) and real historical information – which was far from being a given on paper. Thanks to its rhythm stimulated by the road movie aspect, its great narrative (in particular with the use of dictionaries) and visual inventiveness (with blurriness and distortions illustrating the strongest emotions), and a fantastic score by Thibault Kientz-Agyeman, this impressive and very well mastered debut feature about a childhood sucked into the madness of war (as in the fictional film Beasts of No Nation by Cary Fukunaga in 2015) elevates animation that isn’t afraid to tackle topics that are seemingly difficult but essential to pass on.

Allah Is Not Obliged was produced by Special Touch Studios (France) and co-produced by Paul Thiltges Distribution (Luxembourg), Lunanime (Belgium), Need Productions (Belgium) and Yzanakio Production (Canada). mk2 handles international sales.

(Translated from French)