Alain Gomis: Dao–German Theatrical Release Premiere

Alain Gomis: Dao
Film Screening, Conversation, Q&A
OV with English subtitles
Wed., 27.5., 19:00

Tickets are now available at hkw.de/tickets
10€ / reduced 7€ 

With Dao, director Alain Gomis will present his latest film on 27 May at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW). Following its world premiere in the Competition section of the Berlinale 2026, Dao will celebrate its German theatrical premiere at HKW.

A wedding in France and a funeral service in Guinea-Bissau: through these two rituals, director Alain Gomis combines family memory with collective history and cinematic fiction in Dao, spanning between Europe and West Africa, life and death, past and present. The film tells the story of a generation that lives between different places and memories. At its core is the question of what remains when families are scattered across continents—what stories are told? And which remain unspoken for large amounts of time?

The title Dao is inspired by Taoist ideas and stands for a continuous, circling river of life that embodies the balance of opposites such as birth and death, migration and homeland, fiction and reality. Professional and non-professional actors—including members of Gomis’s own family—improvised on set as part of situations that were left deliberately open. The result is an immersive epic that chooses to embody rather than merely explain the film’s core philosophy: a collective act of remembrance, affirmation of life, and self-assurance. People gather, tell stories, remember, and together invent new forms of living with one another.

Accreditation via: presse@hkw.de
Press photos and press kit via: hkw.de/pressphotos

Programme

Wed., 27.5.
19:00
Welcome by Can Sungu

19:05–22:10
Dao
Film Screening
Dir.: Alain Gomis, 2026, France/Senegal/Guinea-Bissau, 185'
Languages: French/Mandjak/Wolof/Portuguese Creole with English subtitles

22:10–22:45
Conversation between Alain Gomis and Marie-Hélène Pereira, followed by an audience Q&A
French with simultaneous English translation

About Alain Gomis

In 2001, L’Afrance, Alain Gomis’ first fic-tion feature film, was awarded a Silver Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival. This was followed by Andalucia (2007) and Aujourd’hui (2012) starring Saul Williams, which screened in competition at the Berlinale and won the Étalon d’or at Fespaco.

He returned to the Berlinale in 2017 with Félicité where it won the competition’s Grand Jury Prize, followed by the Étalon d’or at Fespaco. The film represented Senegal at the Oscars where it was shortlisted for Best Foreign Language Film. 

In 2022, Rewind & Play, his first feature-length documentary was a free archives based archival film on the legendary jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk. It premiered at the Berlinale (Forum) and won the best middle-length documentary at Toronto’s HotDocs. 

In 2018, he created the Yennenga Centre in Dakar, Senegal, a cinema socio-cultural center and school, to develop production and post-production in West Africa. Dao, presented in the competition of the 2026 Berlinale, is his sixth feature film.

Contact

Maxie Fischer 
Head of Press and Communications 
Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) 
John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10 10557 
Berlin 
T: + 49 (0) 30 397 87 413 
presse@hkw.de