Modou Modou

For decades, three Senegalese brothers have made a living as street vendors. In Marbella, Spain, Youssou has built up a loyal clientele of affluent Dutch, British and
German tourists. Further north, in Roses, Kamal works the steady flow of vacationers passing through the coastal resort town. Back in Dakar, Bass moves between worlds — from the bars and hotels of Almadies, where business travelers and tourists gather, to the packed beaches of Yoff, where locals come to spend the day. Three lives built outside, one sale at a time. At home, they blend into their community as loving family men — navigating domestic life and a changing Senegal.

In his debut documentary, Brahim Tall turns the camera on his own father and uncles — migrant commuter workers straddling Spanish tourist resorts and Senegalese family homes. Within their working environments the protagonists invite the filmmaker to follow the stop-and-go rhythm of their demanding physical labor. Their bodies lead the camera, up close and without respite. In their homes, however, they allow themselves to be observed patiently at the pace of everyday life. Tall’s vibrant portrait dismantles the stereotype of the fraudulent peddler and reclaims the ‘modou modou’ — the Senegalese term for these itinerant street vendors central to the country’s informal economy — as figures of solidarity and sacrifice, their lives tracing the fault lines of the global economy.