For her second feature film, Denis departed from the meditative tone of her debut, and plunged instead into the noise and energy of a band on the road. Acclaimed Cameroonian act Les Têtes Brulées (The Burning Heads) were embarking upon their debut tour of France, and her decision to join them, and document their experiences, resulted in one of the most vivid portraits of a musical group ever commited to film. Denis met co-scenarist and bandleader Jean-Mane Ahanda while filming Chocolat in his homeland, and was intrigued by the passion and complexity of his music.

African musicians say that they start with traditional music and then modernize it," he explains at one point. In fact they only combine modern techniques with traditional beginnings. We, however, combine city and village."

One could say much the same of Denis herself. Coming as it did on the heels of Chocolat's international art-house success, the film's very existence attests to its maker's commitment to cross-cultural representation on the screen, and is at once the most distinctive and the least-seen film of her early career. (The title, incidentally, is pidgin English for Don't go; Stay With Us Until the Morning.)