Black Tea

ABDERRAHMANE SISSAKO
France, Taiwan, Luxembourg, Mauritania, 2024
110 minutes, Color

This exquisite tale of friendship and forbidden love unfolds in Chocolate City–the nickname for the part of Guangzhou, China where exiled Africans gather, live, and connect. At its center is Aya, a young woman who, after astonishing everyone by saying "No" on her wedding day, leaves the Ivory Coast for a new life in China. There she finds a job in a tea boutique owned by Cai, a Chinese man, who initiates Aya into the Chinese tea ceremony. As he teaches her this ancient art, their relationship slowly grows into one of tender love. But for their burgeoning passion to be supported by trust, both must let go of their burdens and face up to their pasts. Black Tea, the first film in a decade from veteran Mauritanian auteur Abderrahmane Sissako, is a remarkable, observational, and sensual work that premiered at Berlinale earlier this year.—Various sources

In Mandarin, English, French, and Portuguese with English subtitles