MIKOKO

Angela Aquereburu Rabatel
Togo 2025 | Original version with English subtitles | 116 min
Q+A with the director to follow
German Premiere

FR 14 NOV
19:00 SINEMA TRANSTOPIA

Déla Otimi has worked as a vendor at Mikoko Market for over twenty years. She frequently complains to her husband Apollinaire, the city mayor, about the many structural problems. When he finally announces that the market will be renovated, she and the Association des Commerçants du Marché de Mikoko (AC2M) are overjoyed. But their excitement quickly fades when Déla discovers that Apollinaire does not intend to renovate the market, but rather replace it with a shopping mall…
Torn between her role as a wife and as an activist, she desperately tries to convince her husband to abandon his project. Yet as she encounters the indifference of those in power, she realizes that even some of the market visitors are playing a double game…

MIKOKO means “Rise” or “Stand up” in the local language.
The film premiered on 8 March 2025, International Women’s Day, at the Bella Bellow Hall of the University of Lomé and was celebrated for its advocacy for civil rights in general and women’s rights in particular.

ANGELA AQUEREBURU RABATEL was born in Togo in 1977. She completed part of her education in her home country before continuing her studies in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, her mother’s birthplace. After earning a Master’s degree at the ESCP Business School in Paris, she worked for several years in human resources. In 2008, she returned to Lomé with her husband, actor Jean-Luc Rabatel, where they founded the audiovisual production company Yobo Studios and produced a series of shows with Togolese actors. Her series OASIS (2019) won the Audience Award at the Festival Vue d’Afrique 2018. In February 2025, Angela Aquereburu Rabatel was appointed Director General of the Société de Radiodiffusion et de Télévision du Bénin (SRTB) S.A.