A Letter from Yene (2022) is a meditative work by filmmaker and theorist Manthia Diawara, known for his reflective, transnational approach to postcolonial experience and cultural memory. The film unfolds as a quiet, reflective address from the Senegalese coastal town of Yene. Told in the form of a letter, the film draws from conversations with local fishermen, pebble collectors, and the filmmaker’s own experience as a seasonal resident. Once a community built on sustainable fishing and farming, Yene is now shaped by rising tides, disappearing fish, and rapid urbanisation. Traditional livelihoods are fading, replaced by fragile new economies—women now sell pebbles for construction, where they once smoked fish to feed their families.

Diawara’s presence is felt not just as an observer but as a participant, questioning his own place in the landscape. The film gently weaves together stillness and motion, featuring wide shots of empty shorelines and the soft chaos of crashing waves, quiet colours and blurred images, allowing reflection to build gradually. The sea is present not as scenery but as spirit – an unsettled witness to human transformation. Following the essay film form, rather than offering a resolution, the film creates space for shared introspection. How do we relate to land and sea when ownership replaces care? What stories emerge when a place starts to disappear? In this intimate, diaristic form, the film becomes a meditation on entanglement, memory, and responsibility across distances.

A Letter from Yene, together with In Praise of Slowness, is part of a larger block exploring African coastal towns facing rapid economic transition, and its effects on the local community.