Yellow Queen
( A Road Movie )

Lucio Arisci
2021 - 87 min - Vidéo Full HD - Couleur - Belgique, Allemagne, Italie

A one-way trip by bus from Cologne to Bamako (Mali), 7200 km in 21 days. A journey whose main protagonists are a bus and its driver Christian, who is lives for mechanics and for traveling.
Since 2012 he takes to Mali only Mercedes O 303 buses, which as he says: "are the best buses ever built: an indestructible chassis, an immortal engine that can easily do up to 2 million km, simple mechanics with easy assembly of spare parts". These buses can no longer circulate in Europe, but in Bamako, they are in great demand, for the above-mentioned reasons. What is considered waste in the North of the world, finds a new value in the South. "I am proud to be part of Mali's real economy, not the humanitarian one that depends on Europe's political decisions. I bring something that the Malians really need".
I participated to one of Christian’s trips, quickly passing through Germany, France and Spain to then slow down along the West coast of Africa: Morocco, West Sahara, Mauritania and Mali, driving through the biggest desert of the planet. I seized the opportunity to (re) discover Africa and its contradictions, and wide up our horizons as "Western citizens" towards a broader and more sustainable vision of the consumer society.