Incorruptible
Short film Completed 2015
Director
Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
Doc Society helped with
Production
Went to Good Pitch
Runtime: 94 minutes
In the Spring of 2011, Senegal was pitched into crisis when President Abdoulaye Wade decided to change the constitution to allow for a third term. An artist-led youth movement erupted to protect one of Africa’s oldest and most stable democracies.
In a country where 70% of the population is under 30 – like much of the global South – the Y’en A Marre (“Enough is Enough”) movement caught fire. After 12 years of corruption and nepotism, of high food and gasoline prices, of constant power outages, and schools shuttered because of striking teachers, the constitutional crisis had become the last straw for the people of Senegal.
14 candidates ran for President. The film follows the main players: incumbent President Wade, opposition candidate Macky Sall, music superstar Youssou N’dour, and the Y’en A Marre movement.
As the election drew closer, Wade felt threatened. Candidates were disqualified, demonstrations escalated, a student leader was killed, and Wade even resorted to courting prominent religious leaders in a dangerous ploy to destroy what had always been a secular process in a Muslim country.
Engaged with other youth movements around the world, Y’en A Marre learned hard lessons from the Arab Spring, and responded to the situation in Senegal by calling for the restoration of accountable representative democracy. Senegal’s rich cultural tradition fed a movement – led by these artist activists to register over 300,000 new voters, and rally people to the polls. More people voted in this election than ever before in the history of an independent Senegal.
Macky Sall, the candidate who ran on a platform of reform and anti-corruption, won.
Y’en A Marre now wrestles with how to hold the newly elected President to his campaign promises. The film explores this transition and the question: after you unite against something, what do you then unite for?
In a time where democracy is under siege in many parts of the world, Incorruptible offers a positive, hopeful example while at the same time honestly examining the sustainability of a peoples’ movement, and the role that youth are taking in shaping the future of their own country.
Crew
Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
Director
Vasarhelyi is an award-winning director and producer. Her first film A Normal Life won Best Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2003. Her second film, Youssou N’Dour: I Bring What I Love, was released in theaters in the U.S. and internationally. The film premiered at the Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals and won numerous awards including the Special Jury Prize at the Middle East International Film Festival in 2008 and a nomination for the Pare Lorentz Award at the 2009 International Documentary Association Awards. Touba, a visceral documentary experience that takes the viewer through each step of the annual Mouride pilgrimage, the Grand Magaal in Touba, Senegal, premiered at SXSW 2013 where it won the Special Jury Prize for Best Cinematography. She returned to Senegal in 2012 to document the heated Presidential elections. An African Spring, the intense and unflinching story of Senegalese democracy is currently in post-production. She is also currently working on two American stories: Little Troopers, a film about the impact of American soldiers’ deployments on their families left behind; and Father School a glimpse into the Korean American movement towards becoming more in-touch fathers and husbands.
Vasarhelyi has received grants from several foundations including the Sundance Documentary Fund, National Endowment for the Arts, BRITDOC, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the William and Mary Greve Foundation. Vasarhelyi was selected as a 2013 Sundance Documentary Film Fellow, named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” in 2005 and received an Achievement Award from Creative Visions foundation in 2008.
She has been featured in numerous publications including, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue and New York Magazine. Chai has a B.A. from Princeton University in Comparative Literature. Vasarhelyi is the founder and Director of Little Monster Films, an independent production company based in New York City which focuses on feature-length, theatrical documentary films that bring inspiring stories to international audiences.
