Adama Drabo made his first film in the absence of any film tradition. Ta dona has a clear and rudimentary style yet it is not naive, while having both humorous (satirical) and dramatic moments. Drabo: `I start work like a painter in front of an empty canvas. I mix pictures, colours, sounds and emotions in order to paint a portrait of a man from the Sahel in his own surroundings, a portrait which demonstrates the complexity of life in today’s Mali.’ Drabo is an advocate of an symbiosis of ancient African culture with modern life and tells a story based on this theme in Ta dona.Sidy is a young engineer who has had a modern education. During his work among the Bambaras, who live to the south of the Sahara, he learns the power and wisdom of their traditions. He teaches the people modern agricultural insights, but is also obsessed by the story of a magical plant with seven medicinal properties. In the course of time, knowledge of the seventh property has been lost and Sidy undertakes a fanatical quest for the lost knowledge. The repressive and bureaucratic government has banned the Bambara people from making traditional and ritual forest fires. When fire breaks out anyway, reprisals follow. But the Bambaras were not to blame for the fire. Sidy reveals that an authoritarian and corrupt soldier is responsible for the arson. As reprisal Sidy is transferred to a distant corner of the Sahara; that is however where he finds the secret of the seventh property which had been feared lost.
