The Golden Wolf of Balolé

Balolé, the Golden Wolf provides a portrait of a community working in a quarry in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, where about 2,500 people, including young children, spend their days breaking large rocks into stones and gravel. Despite the backbreaking condition, they get paid very little for their output, with the cockseurs – or middlemen – taking most of the profits. When the young and charismatic Ablassé helps the community to set up a worker association, the united workers circumvent the cockseurs and get paid more for their labour, allowing some of the children to attend school for the first time. But when Ablassé falls ill, the future of the association is threatened. This fascinating and engaging film documents not only the difficult working lives of its subjects, but also their dignity, resilience, humour, and contagious optimism, and their refusal to be discarded by society.