One evening, as Richard Djif was heading home to his student dorm in Yaoundé, Cameroon's administrative capital, he saw two men standing in front of his halls of residence.

Mr. Djif, a filmmaker, then noticed a Toyota parked nearby, the same one that had been following him around town for two days.

Rather than going into the building, he hailed a motorcycle taxi. The Toyota followed in pursuit. The motorbike driver got scared and dropped Mr. Djif off on a side street. Mr. Djif crossed the road but was cornered by the Toyota and another car. He was then grabbed by two men who blindfolded him and bundled him into one of the cars. Ten days of torture followed; Mr. Djif's finger was broken twice.

The kidnapping took place in 2013, ten days after the debut of his political satire "139... Les Derniers Prédateurs", or "139...The Last Predators," a gangster film showing the corrupt power structures in a fictitious African state called Chimpanzee.

The film's dominant theme is the lack of press freedom. The movie shows two reporters try to interview the dictator fittingly called the "immortal tiger," a reference to the long periods that many African dictators stay in power.

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