Allah is not obliged – Graphic Novel

The adaptation of Allah Is Not Obliged began with a meeting. Producer Sébastien Onomo had long dreamed of bringing Ahmadou Kourouma’s novel to the screen as an animated feature. While we were working together on The Siren by Sepideh Farsi, he introduced me to the book, which I had never read before. Discovering it was a powerful experience. Birahima’s voice struck me immediately: insolent, ironic, and free. He recounts the war with the frankness of a child who refuses false pretenses. His voice reminded me of the stories I heard as a teenager when visiting my family in Beirut—stories of civil war and survival, often told with a brutal sense of humor. This distance between tragedy and the way it is narrated became the heart of the project. Very quickly, one conviction became clear: to adapt this novel, we had to go beyond the book. Thanks to Mohamed Tarawalley, a former Sierra Leonean general now living in Monrovia, I was able to meet former fighters and travel through the places where the story unfolds. These encounters deeply nourished the film and grounded the project in a human and historical reality. The voices then became the starting point for the animation. In Abidjan, with Alma Production, we assembled a cast rooted in this reality. The young rapper SK07 gives voice to Birahima, alongside Missa Ndry, Salomé Kompaoré and Grâce Cisse Tassini, while Thomas Ngijol brings Yacouba to life.

Alongside the film, I developed a graphic novel that extends this universe and explores Birahima’s journey through drawing. Through both the film and the book, Allah Is Not Obliged is above all the story of a voice: that of a child plunged into the madness of war, trying to understand and tell the world around him.