Alliance Française du Maine kicks off the 2025 FESTIVAL CHAMPLAIN - Maine's only French-language film festival - with "Mambar Pierette", filmed in Douala, Cameroon.

"Mambar Pierette" (2023, Cameroon)
By Rosine Mbakam with Pierette Aboheu Njeuthat
93 minutes

Overview: A succession of customers come to Mambar Pierrette, the neighborhood seamstress and reliable confidant, who has her own strife to deal with as a single mother barely making ends meet. As she readies clothes for upcoming social events and the commencement of the school year, heavy rain threatens to flood her workshop – one of many misfortunes in which she will have to find ways to stay afloat. Director Rosine Mbakam's instincts as a documentarian are put to good use in this unique character study that foregrounds common struggles and bonds among women in Africa, often overlooked in mainstream cinema.