Proudly rapacious and defiantly erotic, Karmen (Djeunaba Diop Gau) is both a pan-sexual force of nature and a social outlaw. Jailed in a women's prison on notorious Goree Island, Karmen turns the table on her captors by seducing beautiful warden Angelique (Stephanie Biddle) and escaping into the Dakar underworld. At the society wedding of prominent police corporal Lamine, Karmen denounces the rich guests, brawls with the bride and beds the groom. The love triangle between Karmen, Angelique and Lamine evolves into a more complex geometry that soon includes a smuggler and a charismatic singer (Senegalese pop star El Hadj N'diaye). Though Karmen's insatiable lust for life and unwavering disgust with hypocrisy sow the seeds of her operatic downfall, unlike Bizet's opportunistic seductress, this modern African Carmen is "an incongruously independent woman finally undone by her own aphrodisiac magnetism" (The Village Voice).