Genre Drama

Umuja (2022)

Item: Umuja
Rating: 2.5
Author: Ross McLaren

★★½ — Umuja (2022)

Togo does not produce a large volume of cinema, and finding its name in a film database remains something of a rare event. The country has a modest but genuine filmmaking tradition, as a glance at something like Candomblé in Togo confirms, though feature-length Togolese productions remain few and far between on the international circuit. Umuja, made in 2022 and running to a brisk fifteen minutes, sits within a strand of short-form African drama that tends to prioritise social themes over spectacle. The title itself points towards a community-oriented sensibility, and the film's premise, a young hydraulic engineer returning to her home village after failing to find work in her field, places it squarely in the territory of rural development and intergenerational expectation. It is modest filmmaking with a clear point of view, the kind of short that gets made because someone cares about the subject matter rather than because a studio greenlit a budget.

The film was directed by Armand Sossou, whose name is attached to this project as a Togolese production, though detailed information about the studio behind it is not widely documented. The cast is led by Elom Tideka in what is a fairly contained ensemble alongside Amélie Tamakloe, Caroline Ataya, Roberto Kpepe and Antoine Folly Edoh. Short films of this kind, particularly those coming out of West African cinema, often rely on performers who are comfortable working in close-knit community-drama contexts rather than the more stylised registers you might associate with larger productions. The drama here, from what the premise sets out, is practical and grounded: resource-sharing between villages, the mechanics of wells and compost, the quiet weight of a daughter trying to prove herself to a disappointed father. It is the sort of story that other reviewers of rural-focused drama, whether looking at Mustang or the quieter end of the drama shelf, will recognise as a particular kind of small-scale realism. At fifteen minutes, there is not much room to waste, and the film appears to use its running time accordingly.

Short drama films from outside the major film industries can be a mixed bag, polished but unremarkable or rough-edged but alive, and Umuja comes to this blog as part of a broader world cinema project. It shares the 2022 vintage with other shorts reviewed here, such as Moshari, though the two films could hardly be more different in tone and ambition. Where some short films try to cram in as much as possible, Umuja seems content to tell a single, sensible story simply. Whether that simplicity feels refreshing or a little flat is very much a matter of what you bring to it.

A-Z World Movie Tour Togo https://youtu.be/prpEEDDk7vI?si=WLC2YtGUf8Ezsz0Q A story about a woman called Anita who is out of work. She teams up with a local engineer and together they trade resources and engineering with neighbouring town to increase the yield of their harvest. Simply made. Decent music. Relatively straight forward story. A couple of comedic moments. Overall it's fine.

And that more or less sums it up for me. There is something to be said for a film that knows exactly what it is, does not overstay its welcome, and sends you away having followed a clear little arc from problem to solution. I have sat through far longer films that managed a good deal less. It is not one I will be pressing on friends with any great urgency, but as a small window into Togolese storytelling and a fifteen-minute stopover on a world movie tour, it does the job. Sometimes fine is enough.

Rating: ★★½ | Year: 2022 | Watched: 2025-09-12

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