NO CHAINS NO MASTERS
Canadian premiere
De / from :
Simon Moutaïrou
Avec / with :
Ibrahima Mbaye, Camille Cottin, Anna Diakhere Thiandoum, Benoît Magimel, Félix Lefebvre, Vassili Schneider
Durée en minutes / Runtime :
98
Genre :
Drama – History (Violence – subject treatment may offend)
Langue / Language :
French /Wolof English subtitles
Pays / Country :
France
Au Cinéma le / in theaters :
Tuesday, November 11, 2025 at 6.30 p.m.
Date de sortie / Release date :
n’a pas de sortie de date au Canada
Slavery – Violence – Resistance – The « Maroons » From Mauritius
1759, Mauritius Island, Indian Ocean. The island is controlled by French settlers, and the deported slave population live in fear while toiling in the sugar cane plantations. Unlike her disillusioned father Massamba 16-year-old Mati refuses to keep her head down and accept her fate. One night she flees from the plantation, hoping to escape violence and seek freedom in a remote part of the island, where a community of fugitives is said to live. As the plantation owner hires the merciless slave hunter Madame La Victoire and her sons to pursue Mati, Massamba realizes the brutal consequences awaiting his daughter if she’s captured. He has no choice but to break his chains and set off on a desperate search for her. As a relentless hunt ensues in the island’s unforgiving jungle, the father and daughter forever break away from the colonial order.
(Unifrance)
- Ultimately, No Chains, No Masters excels at doing exactly what it sets out to do – which is to tell a heartbreaking, authentic, engrossing tale of humans who are focused on breaking free of the suffocating shackles they have been unfairly put in.
(Horror Buzz)
- You’ll be at the edge of your seat during the search for Mati in the jungle. The film changes perspectives from Mati’s to Massamba’s to Eugène’s and Madame La Victoire’s perspectives, but it never feels choppy or unfocused (…), there’s never a dull moment as you wonder whether or not Mati will attain her much-deserved freedom and whether or not her father will attain it as well. The ending, which won’t be revealed here, is equally haunting, poetic and powerful.
(The NYC Movie Guru)
- It marks the first big-scale narrative French movie in recent history which sheds light on slavery in French colonies.
Variety
- For his first film, Simon Moutaïrou delivers a poignant testimony on the scourge of slavery.
(Les Fiches du cinéma translated by Distrib Films US)
- Vienna Francophone Film Festival Austria, 2025 Feature films
- The Alliance Française French Film Festival Australia, 2025 Of freedom and justice
- FESPACO Burkina Faso, 2025 Section Diversités
Deauville American Film Festival 2024 1 nomination – Fenêtre sur le cinéma français