You Need to Watch This Cinematic Exploration of Immigration

French Algerian DJ Snake has unveiled “Patience,” a music video in form, but in every other sense, a cinematic short film.

Shot in Senegal by French director and cinematographer Valentin Guiod, the seven-minute visual is a poetic exploration of migration and endurance that pays homage to Amadou & Mariam’s 2008 classic, “Sabali.” The song and its film are made more poignant by the recent passing of Amadou Bagayoko, whose performance in the film would be his last.

Set against the sun-soaked terrain of the West African nation, “Patience” follows a young man navigating the emotional and physical terrain of departure as he leaves home in search of something better. His story is one of millions across West Africa, where economic precarity, climate change, and instability continue to push people to migrate.

Actor Omar Sy (Lupin, Les Intouchables) makes a powerful appearance, grounding the film’s emotional weight with a deeply felt yet understated performance.

“It started with a song I’ve loved for years — ‘Sabali’ by Amadou & Mariam,” DJ Snake tells OkayAfrica. “I used to listen to it on repeat. One day, I played a loop from an edit I had been working on for my team, and everyone felt the same thing: this was something special. That moment sparked the beginning of “Patience.”

“But I didn’t want to just release a song. I felt the urge to give it depth and purpose. The migrant crisis is often reduced to numbers and headlines, but behind it are stories of hope, loss, and courage,” DJ Snake continues. “I didn’t want to make a political statement — I wanted to offer something emotional, something poetic. The short film became a way to express that: using beauty and silence to speak to the heart, and to remind people of the humanity behind these journeys.”

Once the idea for the music video struck him, he hurried to complete the song while also sharing the concept with creative director Charly Dengelser. In turn, Dengelser began scouting for producers.

He found Hugo Nathan of the production company Birth, whose main challenge was how the team would visually interpret the song. “We did want to touch on immigration, but to portray it as more of a symbolic departure [...] Bringing on board Omar, a great cinematic talent, [suddenly] increased the project exponentially,” says Nathan, who also appears in the documentary.

“[DJ Snake] told me the theme he wanted to explore, and then he said he wanted to do it in Senegal,” Sy says in the documentary. “When you look at Africa in the context of Europe, and these African youth with these dreams and desires about life in Europe, and they take immediate risks – it’s between a successful exile and death. And they’re aware of it when they take the risk, but they do it anyway.”

In the documentary, Dengelser shares a memory of the first time he heard DJ Snake’s re-work in a Parisian neighborhood. “[He] was working on a new track with a musician, and at the end of the session, he told us, ‘I have something here.’” That something is a sonically balanced track that combines drill sensibilities with a song that has been interpreted in other genres, from the Southern trap of Future to the electronic turns of Theophilus London.

DJ Snake, who has partnered with an international maritime and humanitarian organization dedicated to saving lives at sea called SOS MEDITERRANEE, concludes: “It’s the story of a young African man who does everything possible for an exodus or exile in Europe. Unfortunately, this is the case for many young people who are prepared to die to get out. It’s a story that has been repeating itself since the beginning of time, and that rings more and more true for us today.”