[The following text was published in Pardo, the official daily of the Locarno Film Festival.]

At first glance, Souleymane seems completely at ease in Berlin. He is a passionate fashion designer and member of the city’s bustling Ballroom scene, in which the creativity of Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ performers is platformed. A trans man who can easily pass for cis, Souleymane is the reigning champion of “Realness”, a competitive Ballroom section that rewards participants for their capacity to convincingly assume a variety of heteronormative identities.

But Souleymane also straddles other worlds, born as he is to a Senegalese father and a German mother. From his ailing, immigrant father, he has inherited a vintage kora, a traditional Senegalese string instrument, that has now fallen into disrepair. Though he can barely play it, he cherishes the instrument, so much so that he decides to travel to Dakar to have it restored by traditional craftsmen. Souleymane’s journey by sea to the kora’s place of origin is also a way of embracing his mixed heritage – a source of unspoken malaise for this sensitive young man.

My Father’s Kora, a poignant documentary by Berlin-dwelling Beninese filmmaker Ayeman Aymar Esse, shines a sympathetic light on young Afro-Germans in search of their roots. In Dakar, Souleymane has a cordial reunion with his extended family. He hasn’t seen them in years, and since he doesn’t speak either Wolof or French, the conversations slip in and out of multiple languages. We learn that Souleymane’s grandfather, a devout Muslim, is aware of his gender transition, but offers him tacit acceptance, going so far as to guide him as he begins his conversion to Islam. This acceptance, it turns out, is shared by one and all. As the kora is mended, Souleymane too begins to heal in his embrace of family and faith.

The warmth and affection that Souleymane receives in Dakar is equally characteristic of My Father’s Kora, which has a touch of the fairy tale about it. Punctuated by dreamlike images of the sea, gauzy visual textures and the heavenly notes of the kora, Esse’s gentle film follows its protagonist on his journey of self-discovery, but refrains from amplifying the dramatic stakes. Even with weighty themes of displacement and belonging in play, scenes are built with plenty of breathing space, accompanying Souleymane on his own terms.

Souleymane’s chosen Ballroom family in Berlin and his biological family in Dakar will perhaps only ever speak to different, and to some degree mutually incompatible parts of his personality. But Esse’s compassionate film inspires us to believe that, together, they can make him whole again.