Saloum (film)
Saloum is a 2021 Senegalese thriller film directed by Congolese director Jean Luc Herbulot and produced by Pamela Diop. The film stars Yann Gael, Mentor Ba and Roger Sallah in the lead roles whereas Evelyne Ily Juhen, Bruno Henry, and Marielle Salmier made supportive roles. The film revolves around Bangui's Hyenas, an elite trio of mercenaries that extract a drug dealer and his bricks amidst of Guinea-Bissau's coup d'état of 2003. The film made international premiere in the Midnight Madness section at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival on 30 September 2021. The film received  critics acclaim and screened worldwide. Herbulot won the Award for the best director in the Next Wave section at the Fantastic Fest, and the film won the Audience Award for most popular film in the Altered States program at the 2021 Vancouver International Film Festival. Reception. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 100 percent based on 19 critics, with an average rating of 7.40 out of 10. Richard Kuipers of Variety wrote that "["Saloum" f]reely mixes and marries the cinematic languages of spaghetti Westerns, samurai dramas and classic monster movies to tell an  exciting and distinctly African story". Valerie Complex of "Deadline Hollywood" praised the film for its "supernatural horror elements", which, according to him also contain "comedy and suspense". According to Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting, the film's "Spirituality, morality, mythology, and mysticism get thrown into a gritty crime thriller blender, culminating in a refreshingly unique type of genre-bender".