Delwende (Lève-toi et marche)

Synopsis :

In a small village of Burkina countryside, the young Pugbila is being raped in the night after the sacred danses. She is married by her father the day after, and leave the village to live with her husband. But the village is touched by an epidemy : children are dying. The elders decide to call for the marabout, who lead a ceremony : the Songho, which is supposed to be able to find the cause. Pugbila's mother is conviced to be the witch, and must leave the village. Her errand, being repelled by everyone will lead her to the capital, where her daughter will try to find her.

The movies whows us a busy and colorfull Africa, far away from any prejudice of pauverty. No miserabilism, the topic is somewhere else. The easy traditionnal way to solve problems, calling the Manes to help, and the common practice to point at a woman as the scapegoat of any problem is at the center of the realisator's concern here. Scenes shot in a « witch shelter » exploits the contrats between the young and beautiful Pugbila and these old women, who live in a junkyard, only by charity of the « Ministere du developpement de la femme ».

It's a reality of Africa, how traditions can be a weight for supersticious people, and a curb to development. Maybe the subject could have been tackled with less insistance, and smugness (not. In the shelter's scenes). The whole story is a way to tell us something, and is the narration get very secondary in the second part of the movie.

Errance, wanderring : aimless for the mother who doesn't know hos to survive, and determination of her daughter, who wants to save and rehabilitate her. This girl, of the new generation who is asked to stand and walk. That hope, symbolised by the new generation is a message that join a common topos in african cinema : the young girl who bring truth and peace into a conflictual situation, with dignity and determination. Pugbila is something of the princess of Ceddo.

The first scene is a beautifull danse of youth, the young girl of the village are both sensuals and energic. Plans are long, the crane is used with dexterity and inventivity. But during the movie, this virtuosity disapears, for the benefit of more statics plans, well composed and very colored. But there is no more surprise, no real invention after this. This is especially perceptible when the narration rythme get slower in the second part.

I must say delwende is a good movie, the immerge us into the traditions and the customs of a small village. But it hardly get to something more that a good « thesis movie », militant for social changes.

Realisator

S Pierre Yamaedo is born in 1955 in Koudougou (Burkina Faso). He studies cinema in Paris (Conservatoire Libre du Cinéma Français), and makes his first short in 1984 : « L'oeuf Silhouette ». His first feature, Laafi, is selected for the Festival de Cannes 's Prix de la critique. He gets a prize at the 1993's Fespaco for «Wendemi ».

A movie by S. Pierre Yamaedo.

2005

With Blandine Yameogo, Claire Ilboudo and Céléstin Zongo.
Regard Hope Award, at 2005's Cannes Festival.

The Making of African Cinema : Ousmane Sembene

Manthia Diawara and Ngugi Wa Thiong'o met Ousmane Sembene before his death. And this movie is a precious acount of the man who was called the « father of african cinema ». Visiting the places where he shot some of his most importants movies, they let him talk about many things. What is cinema, links between cinema and litterature, the rôle of african cinema.

The dialogue is often politic, and the purpuse is clear : the realisators, both americans, want to find out something about their roots, and Sembene is a providential guide, one foot on each side of the world. The culture of Africa lives in him with the Western culture. They are eager to hear him, and so we are : more than a documentary or a long interview, we feel like being invited to a meeting with him.

Sembene : « I'm suspicious with the new humanitarism. White people have lied us three times. First, after emptying America of its inhabitants, because they need us, they came to christianise us. Much later in 1920, they came to pacify us. In 1960, they left, and they left nothing but chaos. And now, in 1993, they came and tell us they are here to brung us democraty. What will be the next invention ? Any African should know this, the Whites lied us three times... ».

But beyond these consideration, the link is quickly made with cinema : « I, personnaly, prefer litterature. But litterature is a luxury good. I came to cinema to continue my quest of activism. Cinema is a myth that can be shared with the audience ». What touches us in Sembene's cinema is maybe : activism is the first step, but his movies try to reach the universality of the myth.

Sembène Ousmane : The making of African cinema

Documentary by Manthia Diawara, Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, USA.

60''

1993

Arlit, deuxieme Paris

A town, in the hostile desert, somewhere in Niger, near the Algerian border. Many plans of the town, the orange sand and the orange houses. We slowly discover the town, empty streets, wide panoramics of the colored homes, and a large factory in the back. What is this building ? We will learn that this is an uranium mine.

We are in Arlit, Niger. The uranium mine is still the first source of devises of the country (even if the . After its creation from scratch in 1969, the golden age lasted until the crash of the uranium price in 19xx. And the old men remember when the workers were richs, when they could eat in restaurants and when they had not to worry about future. Times have changed : the town, called « le deuxième Paris » by the locals, is now a ghost of its past. The mines have lowered the number of its miners (only 700 today, for the 80 000 population). The city has changed. Now, it's not more than a transit point in the long way from black Africa to Europe, for undocumented migrants. Why do you want to go to Europe ? "I know it's not perefet. But there is no job where i come from, and i don't want to stay, waiting for death without doing anything. I prefer to die on my feet, trying to do something". "And for my familly, it doesn't matter if i die in the desert. They won't know, they'll think i'm dead in Europe, that's what's important." And, watching the movement of migrants, the old miners are slowly dying of radiations. The « deuxieme Paris », created for the mines, is slowly becoming a ghost town, place of illegal business.

No off comment : only several people are talking, 6-7 regular intervenants and a few ponctual interview. The documentary lets an important place to view of places, children playing on caterpillars wreck, the colored houses (orange outside, blue inside). A few portraits ans interview, but the community is the true subject of the movie, and its history is sensible in every moment. The town looks alive, and the camera takes all its time to show Arlit, its colors, it's conception of time, the constrats of its inhabitants (people from all Black Africa, Nigerians, Touaregh).

« For me, there is no difference : I film a documentary as I would film a fiction feature. I don't think the esthetic is a weight for the documentary, on the contrary : I want to show what I saw, by any means possible ».

This movie recieved many distinction in international festivals. But in Europe, it was only distributed in Germany. The question of the distribution of major african movies is still critical. Making movies in Africa is difficult, bringing them to public is another adventure.

Arlit, deuxieme Paris

Documentary

By Idrissou Mora Kpai

2005

78 minutes

Niger & Benin

Produced by MKJ film : http://www.mkjfilms.com/films.php

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arlit%2C_deuxi%C3%A8me_Paris

Among many distinctions :
Best Documentary of the 15th African, Asian and Latin American Film Festival, Milan (Italia)

Best Documentary, TV5 Award in the 20th Namurs International French Speaking Film Festival (Belgium)

List of Movies by countries [Tous les cinemas du Monde, Rouen]

Algérie	LE THÉ D'ANIA - Said Ould-Khelifa - Algérie/France - 2004 - 95' - VOSTF
Angeleterre	CUBA, UNE ODYSSÉE AFRICAINE - Jihan El-Tahri - Royaume-Uni/France - 2006 - 2 X 59' - VOSTF
Angola	IL Y A TOUJOURS QUELQU'UN QUI T'AIME - Pocas Tisserand - Angola - 2003 - 55' - VOSTF
Argentine	LA FIANCÉE ERRANTE - Ana Katz - Argentine - 2006 - 85' - VOSTF
Belgique	LE CERCLE DES NOYÉS - Pierre-Yves Vandeweerd - Belgique - 2007 - 71' - VOSTF - N&B
	MANOU GALLO, FEMME DE RYTHME - Jean-Philippe Martin - Belgique - 2006 - 52'
	THOMAS SANKARA, L'HOMME INTÈGRE - Robin Shuffield - Belgique/France - 2007 - 52'
Brésil	UN TRAIN NOMMÉ SAMBA - Sylvie Bayonne - Brésil/France - 2005 - 26' - VOSTF
BurkinaFaso	BINTOU - Fanta Régina Nacro - Burkina Faso - 2001 - 31'
	SAFI, LA PETITE MÈRE - Rasò Ganemtoré - Burkina Faso/Italie/France - 2004 - 30'
Cap-vert	CAP-VERT, MON AMOUR - Ana Lucia Ramos Lisboa - Cap-Vert - 2007 - 76' - VOSTF
Chili	PLAY - Alicia Scherson - Chili - 2005 - 105' - VOSTF
Chine	LA SAVEUR DE LA PASTÈQUE - Tsai 'g-Liang - Taiwan/Chine/France - 2005 - 114' - VOSTF - interdit aux moins de 16 ans
Congo	PIÈCES D'IDENTITÉS - Mweze Ngangura - Congo/Belgique/France - 1998 - 97'
Cuba	ADOLFO - Sofi Delaage - Cuba - 2006 - 43'
France	BARAKAT ! - Djamila Sahraoui - France - 2005 - 94'
	CALICOT - V. Sarah Gurevick - France - 2002 - 7'
	CHEZ MOI - Mariette Monpierre - France - 2006 - 7'
	CHIEN NOIR, CHIEN BLANC - Vincent Schmitt - France - 2005 - 27'
	CHRONIQUES AFRICOLES - Valérie Rosenwald et Cécile Marque - France - 2005 - 64'- VOSTF/VF
	HAROUNA ABOUBACAR ZEINABOU ENFANTS DU NOMA - Christian Lajoumard - France -2007 - 61'
	LA TERRE ABANDONNÉE - Vimukthi Jayasundara - France/Sri Lanka - 2005 - 108'
	LES COW-BOYS SONT NOIRS - Serge Moati - France - 1966 - 15' (Making of)
	L'OR BLEU, RESSOURCE OU MARCHANDISE - Didier Bergounhoux - France - 2006 - 49'
	POUSSIÈRE DE FEMMES - Lucie Thierry - France - 2007 - 51'
	RACINES(S) - Karim Bensalah - France - 2006 - 7'
	SUR LE SENTIER DE L'ÉCOLE - Lucas Mouzas - France - 2005 - 52' - VOSTF
	UNE AVENTURE PAS COMME LES AUTRES - Robin Letellier/Albert Mendy/élèves de l'école Saint-Vivien - 2007 - 20'
	VAUDOU - Jean-Luc Magneron - France - 1976 - 80' - interdit aux moins de 12 ans
	VÉLO NOIR, VÉLO BLANC - Martin Fraudreau - France - 2006 - 52'
Japon	APPLESEED - Shinji Aramaki - Japon - 2004 - 83' - VOSTF
	ORIGINE - Keiichi Sugiyama - Japon - 2006 - 95' - VOSTF
Mali	FARO, LA REINE DES EAUX - Salif Traoré - Mali - 2007 - 90' - VOSTF
Maroc	AMAL - Ali Benkirane - Maroc/France - 2004 - 17'
	LE CAFÉ DES PÊCHEURS - Al Hadi Ulad-Mohand - Maroc - 2007 - 23'
Namibie	DAY OFF - Jérôme Jourlait - Namibie/France - 2007 - 3'
	SUNSTROKE - Jérôme Jourlait - Namibie/France - 2007 - 10' - VOSTF
Niger	BON VOYAGE SIM - Moustapha Alassane - Niger - 1966 - 5'
	FVVA - FEMME, VILLA, VOITURE, ARGENT - Moustapha Alassane - Niger - 1972 - 68'
	KOKOA - Moustapha Alassane - Niger - 2001 - 13'
	LE RETOUR D'UN AVENTURIER - Moustapha Alassane - Niger - 166 - 34'
	SAMBA LE GRAND - Moustapha Alassane - Niger - 1977 - 14' - VF
Palestine	IT'S NOT A GUN - Hélèna Cotinier et Pierre-Nicolas Durand - Palestine - 2006 - 67' - VOSTF
Sénégal	BOROM SARRET - Sembene Ousmane - Sénégal - 1962 - 19'
	CEDDO - Ousmane Sembene - Sénégal - 1977 - 120' - VOSTF
	GUELWAAR - Ousmane Sembene - Sénégal/France - 1991 - 105' - VOSTF
	LA NOIRE DE... - Ousmane Sembene - Sénégal/France - 1966 - 60' - VF - N&B
	LE MANDAT - Ousmane Sembene - Sénégal - 1968 - 105' - VOSTF
	MON BEAU SOURIRE - Angele Diabang Brener - Sénégal - 2005 - 5' - VOSTF
	NIAYE - Sembene Ousmane - Sénégal - 1964 - 35'
	PETITE LUMIÈRE - Alain Gomis - Sénégal/France - 2003 - 15'
Syrie	LE VOYAGE AU BOUT DU MONDE - Mohamad Al-Roumi - Syrie - 2006 - 17' - VOSTF
Taiwan	ET LÀ-BAS QUELLE HEURE EST-IL? - Tsai 'g-liang - Taiwan/France - 2001 - 116' - VOSTF
	GOODBYE DRAGON INN - Tsai 'g-liang - Taiwan/France - 2004 - 82' - VOSTF
	I DON'T WANT TO SLEEP ALONE - Tsai 'g-liang - Taiwan/France/Autriche - 2006 - 114' - VOSTF
	LET IT BE - Chuang Yi-tseng & Yen Lan-chuan - Taiwan - 2004 - 111' - VOSTF
	OCEAN FEVER - Chen Lung-nan - Taiwan - 2004 - 109' - VOSTF
	POLES EXTREMITY - Zero Chou - Taiwan - 2002 - 56' - VOSTF
	RESPIRE - Ho Wi-ding - Taiwan - 2005 - 15' - VOSTF
	STONE DREAM - Hu Tai-li - Taiwan - 2004 - 79' - VOSTF
	TAIPEI'S BOHEMIANS - Hung Hung - Taiwan - 2004 - 50' - VOSTF
	THE HOLE - Tsai 'g-liang - Taiwan/France - 1999 - 95' - VOSTF
Tchad	DARATT - Mahamat-Saleh Haroun - Tchad - 2006 - 96' - VOSTF
Tunisie	TENDRESSE DU LOUP - Jilani Saadi - Tunisie - 2006 - 85' - int. - 12 ans
USA	LE TEMPS D'UN FILM - Laurence Attali - Sénégal/États-Unis/France - 2007 - 52'

Countries of the movies [Tous les cinemas du Monde, Rouen]

77 Movies are shown in the festival, and the second country represented is Taiwan !

You can find in exclusivity the google map of the Represented country on this external page !

France	17
Taiwan	10
Sénégal	9
Niger	7
Maroc	5
Japon	4
Belgique	3
BurkinaFaso	3
Cuba	3
Namibie	2
Angleterre	1
Angola	1
Cap-vert	1
Mali	1
Chine	1
Congo	1
Brésil	1
Palestine	1
Chili	1
Syrie	1
Tahri	1
Argentine	1
Tchad	1
Tunisie	1
USA 1 Total general	78

It's not a gun [Tous les cinemas du Monde, Rouen]

A girl singing, violin, clarinet, cello, playing in the street. The crowd is surprised, interested, listening, smiling. Some children are playing with the camera, but most of them are carefully watching the instruments. Soldiers are coming : « - You can't stay, we have to secure the place, you can't stay ! -But this is music : a cello, not a gun ! ». We're in a checkpoint, near Ramallah.

2003. Rani Aburedwan explains his project : to bring music in Palestine. « I spent my childhood to throw stones, it was the first Intifada. But I remember the first time I saw a guy playing the guitar. » He created an association, Al Kamadjati (the violinist) and a camera followed them : from the doubts of the beginning, in 2003 till the opening of a musical school in 2005. In 2 years 30 musician has been invited in Palestine to play and teach music to children.

Ramallah On Google Map : a blank zone.

The two young documentarists have followed the association for a few weeks, in 2003, 2004 and 2005, to show the progress and the evolution of the project. This long time reveal the determination of some musicians, aware of the palestinian condition, and the evolution of what starts as a modest project (play for children) until the creation of a musical school.

Difficulties came from everywhere: Passing checkpoints can take hours, and children are waiting for them in refugees camps, disappointed. The Wall. « I can't imagine what the landscape was before the wall. It looks old, but it was not here last year. » French, German musician who came are disoriented, and have doubts. Many Palestinians asking « are they Jew ? They aren't like us ! », danger is so near !
Some moments of the movie are really stunning, like this girl, 5 years old : « It was beautifully. My father had an instrument when he was alive. Since, it broke and my father is dead ».

This documentary does not show us the preparation, the long organisation needed to bring these classical musicians in the occupied territories. Instead we are with them when they cross the countries, playing in front of children, showing them instruments, giving lessons.
Only one thing is eternal : children smile, and pleasure to listen and play. « I remember, when I came to a camp, I saw the children sketches. There were tanks, guns, and planes throwing bombs. I played, and spent an afternoon with them. I came back a weeks ago. I saw many of them were drawing violins. The tanks had not disappeared, but I hope we can make them understand there is something else. It's important. Some of them were expelled from school by religions : "you are Muslim children, you can't listen music ". Children will remember they liked our music. One day, I hope they will understand some are taking advantage of the situation to control this chaos. ».




Of course, « this is not a gun » is just an association, not here to bring more pain, but to share the joice of music with children who never saw a violin.

About the movie :
* 2006, by Pierre-Nicolas Durand and Hélèna Cotinier
* the association : http://www.alkamandjati.com

Le Mandat, en presence de Moustapha Alassane [Tous les cinemas du Monde, Rouen]

Mandabi, the postal order which is a part of life of africans who emigrated in Europe and send money back to their familly. This one have been sent from Paris to Dakar. But when the recipient understand he needs an ID to claim the order, the farce begins.

This is a poor, unemployed man. In his too large booboo, he tries to get his papers. And when he get it, crooks and neighbours come to claim their part in the name of solidarity with friends, employees, beggars...

« If begging becomes a profession in Senegal, what will happen to us ? » ask the main character.

Within the poor urban population, we are shown another conception of property, which lack of intimacy, and privacy. Among it, with a lot of humour, we see the emerging "evolved" elite : educated in european schools they take advantage of the situation, getting the crumbs of the colonial power after the decolonisation.

The character embodies an Africa that have nothing in hands, except dignity, and seems destined to be swindled. The humour become a need in front of this situation : how is it possible to get less rich after recieving money than before ? This movie is a Farce, of course, but a symbol of a true north/south relationship.

The audience was laughing, was moved... without difference between french and senegalese that were present (the projection took place in the Senegalese Shelter). Sembene made a movie that could talk to both populations: African and European. First one are ready to laugh about the situation of their country, of an honnest man. Second one is catched by the universal laught and a new understanding, a new point of view about the post colonisation in Africa. Sembene achieves to bring the whole thing together without manicheism.

Moustapha Alassane, present during the projection, said a few words when a spectator asked him about « fight against poverty » in Africa.

« What is poverty ? Is it something that dispeared in Europe or in America ? It is a word used in a wrong way, used only for Africans. But poverty does not exist : there is only under development. It is different. The world did not let us time, and because there are things we can't do, because we don't have the knowledge, or the technics, we are considered poors. But poverty is everywhere : thoses who are not considered as poor are thoses who could develop themselves.

As you saw in this movie, recieving money from Europe is an opportunity to swindle. This allow small employees to get a little more money, but bribery became an industry. It's not a few bags of rice, as in this movie, but tons and tons that were stolen, misappropriated. It's not by sending money we will help these countries.

There are so many things that were invented to swindle people."

Mandabi - The Money Order - 1968
Realisation and screenplay : Ousmane Sembene
WIth Makhouredia Gueye
Language : Wolof and French

Le cinéma sans la télévision

Written by an amazing number of cinema's specialists, Le cinema sans la television is a wonderful opened door to movie world.

We found around the table Jean Michel Frodon ( leading the Cahier du cinema), Michel Reilhac (Directing Cinema section for Arte France), Marie-Jose Mondzain (philosophe, EHESS-CNRS), Laurence Herszberg (directing the Forum des images), Alain Bergala ( critic, cineast, teaching in Femis), and some 10 or 20 other of the same high-level.

Written in 2004 on the basis of some meeting-days, it is composing a conversation-like style which never get tired : the ideas are poping one after the other without stop.
Going from pure "TV vs Cine", to "spectator's liberty and movies" through "philosophical consequences of numerical revolution" and "integration of time and space in photos &movies", this book give an excellent key to enter the cinema world.

Subjects are treated with wide opening ideas and real clear style. It goes in fact much more behind the sample problem of cinema with or without TV. It treats about what is cinema, what is TV as a sociological matter and how each mode of diffusion is changing the real nature of the images, and inversion of power between cineast and spectator.

It can only speak to each one of us who are using each day these different medias, and we just read here some specialists taking position and analysing jests and behaviours we are making each days. Impressive.

This to say this book is treating much more subjects than only Le cinema sans la television. At the end of the day we also guess a possible future problematic : La television sans le cinema.

To read without hesitation.

Book's website (in french) :
http://lexception.org/article147.html

Tsai Ming Liang

Tsai Ming Liang is born in Kuchin, Malaisia in 1957. At 20, he movend to Taipei, Taiwan, to Study Drama and Cinema. He directed some movies for the Taiwan Television, and his first cinema feature is Rebel of the Neon God, in 1992. This moovie is an austere vision on urban decay, alienation, boredom. The regression is visible in many ways : presence of water, sentiments are lost, intimacy does not exist...

Vive l'amour, 1994, is awarded with the golden Lion. The loneliness in urban scenery here is present as the form of an empty appartment, where three people will move, for different reasons, unaware of the other's presence first. The Hole, in 1998, is a strange musical, in a dying future. A mysterious disease make people to act like cockroaches. The city was abandonned by all but some defiant isolated people. It's raining, a storm is visible from any window and water is invading the building. A plumber dig a hole in the ground of an appartement, which become the center of the life of its owner, watching his neighbourg, and being obsessed by her. In 2006, I don't want to sleep alone.takes place in Kuala lumpur, and shows the meeting of a homeless, an immigrant worker and a waitress. The strange triangle makes a erotic and comical movie.

# 1992 : Les Rebelles du dieu néon (Ch'ing shaonien na cha)
# 1994 : Vive l'amour (Aiqing wansui)
# 1997 : La Rivière (He liu)
# 1998 : The Hole (Dong)
# 2001 : Fish, Underground
# 2001 : A Conversation with God
# 2001 : Et là-bas, quelle heure est-il ? (Ni neibian jidian)
# 2002 : Le Pont n'est plus là (Tianqiao bu jianle)
# 2002 : The Skywalk is Gone
# 2003 : Good Bye, Dragon Inn (Bu san)
# 2004 : Welcome to São Paulo (Bem-Vindo a São Paulo)
# 2005 : La Saveur de la pastèque (Tian bian yi duo yun)
# 2006 : I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (Hei yan quan)

Ressources

Web :

http://www.filmref.com/directors/dirpages/tsai.html

http://www.evene.fr/celebre/biographie/tsai-ming-liang-29570.php

Moustapha Alassane

Moustapha Alassane is born in 1942 in Niger. After being initiated to cinema techniques by Jean Rouche (ethnologist and documentarist), he studies with Claude Jutra and Norman Mac Laren in Canada.
His first short is Aouré (Mariage), an ethnographic documentary about the traditionnal wedding in a nigerian village, in 1962. He is the pioneer of the animation in African, with the first animation movie in 1965, The Death of Gandhi. Le retour d'un aventurier, a kind of african western is shot in 1966 : a nigerian was in USA, and comes back to the village, with bags full of cow boy outfits. His friends and him are recreating an american dream in Africa.His movie Femme, Villa, Voiture, Argent, widely casted in subsaharian Africa illustrated the danger of freed.

He realised some 30 movies, animation films but documentary and features.

He recieved the Legion d'Honneur in 2007.

Ressources :
http://www.africultures.com/index.asp?menu=revue_affiche_article&no=1447 interview by Olivier Barlet in 2000.
http://www.planeteafrique.com/Niger/Index.asp?affiche=News_Display.asp&articleid=107&rub=Arts-Culture about nigerian cinema.

Books :
Gaël Teicher, Moustapha Alassane, Montreuil, Ouagadougou, Editions de l'œil, Sarkofa & Guirli, 2003
« Un jeune cinéaste nigérien, Mustapha Alassane, réinvente le cinéma », Bingo, octobre 1969, p. 48-49

Ousmane Sembene

Ousmane Sembene is born in 1923 in Casamance, southern Senegal. He went to school but is expelled in 1936 for indiscipline. His father, a fisherman, sent him to his relatives in Dakar, where he worked from 38 to 42 as an apprentice mechanic and a bricklayer. He is mobilized in the France Libre Army in 1942. Upon being discharged in 1946 at the end of the war, he went back to Dakar, and witnesses what will be the topic of one of his novels, a general strike that paralye the colony. He left Dakar in 1947 to live and work in France. Sembene worked as a docker in Marseille until 1960.

This is a time of engagement an political action. He join a labor union and the Parti Communiste Francais, and become one of the locals responsables. He reads a lot, marxist theory and novel, history and political theory. He participated in the protest movements against the war in Indochine, supports the FLN.
He published his first novel in 1956, Le docker noir (The Black Docker), on his loosely reconstructed experiences as an black African dockworker in Marseilles. His work as a writer will continue, with O Pays, mon beau Pays, Les petits bouts de bois de Dieu. The need to express something was here., between fiction, witness and history, about the African-Western relations.

Semebene returns in Senegal in 1961. Seeing again the illetrate people he wanted to write to, the idea of the cinema became necessary : not for entertainement, but as a « cours du soir ». In an oral culture, the cinema seemed to be the way to spread art and ideas. He will integrate a cinema school in 62 in Moscow, and his first short is shot in Senegal, Borom Sareti. His work was a part of the process that made that Africa was not only a consummer of pictures and art but a producer, too, talking of its own concerns. His first feature is La Noire de..., in 1966, the story of a african girls, brought in France by a couple, and used as a slave, in contemporean context. He is awarded by the Prix Jean Vigo. But in Le Mandat, in 1968, he shoot in Africa, and uses the Wolof to reconnect with african public. The european recognition in even wider, with the Special Critics Prie in Venice. Amoung the nine movies he directed, let's notice Ceddo, 1974, in which Sembene tells the story of a confrontation between muslim and traditionnals in XVIIth century, a movie against intolerance and use of religion in fights of power.

He died in 2007 the 9th of June.

http://images3.hiboox.com/images/0208/qshketzp.jpg

Filmography (feature) :
* 1966 : La Noire de...
* 1968 : Le Mandat (Mandabi)
* 1971 : Emitaï (Dieu du tonnerre)
* 1974 : Xala
* 1976 : Ceddo
* 1987 : Le Camp de Thiaroye
* 1992 : Guelwaar
* 2000 : Faat Kiné
2003 : Moolaadé


Ressources :
Web
OUSMANE SEMBENE: THE LIFE OF A REVOLUTIONARY ARTIST by Samba Gadjigo, Mount Holyoke College : http://www.newsreel.org/articles/OusmaneSembene.htm
http://www.ousmanesembene.com/
very short but some infos.
http://www.senegalaisement.com/senegal/ousmane_sembene.html
http://www.filmref.com/directors/dirpages/sembene.html


Books
Niang, Sada. Littérature et cinéma en afrique francophone : Ousmane Sembène et Assia Djebar. Paris : L’Harmattan, 1996.
A call to action – The films of Ousmane Sembene, presented by Sheila Petty, ed. Praeger, Westport
Good introduction to African Cinema throug its « father », as Sembene is often called.
The cinema of Ousmane Semene, A pioneer of African Film, Francoise Pfaff, Greenwood Press, London, 1984.

Agenda des Festivals a visiter en 2008

Du suspens à la hitchock [Seule dans la nuit]

Tous les éléments sont là : seulement six acteurs, un décors banal, des truands gentils, une victime innocente, un scénario plein d'intelligence, le tout dans un lieu unique, pour une heure trente de pur suspens !

Terence Young, certainement connu pour avoir lancé la série des James Bond, signe ici un film à l'opposé de ces scénarios pyrotechniques. Comme lors de ses premiers pas avec Sean Connery, il évite les pièges des effets spéciaux, et se sert de l'intelligence du scénariste pour faire monter le suspens du film. Jusqu'au point insoutenable des quelques secondes de pellicule noire qui nous plonge dans l'univers aveugle d'Audrey Hepburn. Et si on a pris soin de se mettre dans les conditions du cinéma chez soi, on se retrouve exactement dans la même situation que les personnages, on est renvoyé à nous mêmes, expérimentant nos faiblesses, ressentant la puissance de l'esprit, et par empathie nous nous retrouvons confiant pour le faible, car comme dans les morales populaires, David bat Goliath par la victoire de l'essence humaine : l'intelligence, contre laquelle les ennemis aveuglés de haine n’arrivent pas à lutter.

Mais le scénario nous prend de cours pour des rebondissements jouissifs…

Happy new year 2008 !

Again a year which begin :)
And this year is promissing for our project, as we detected not less than 16 festivals to visit, on which we find 1 in Italy and 1 in Russia, the rest being in France !
Now we have to concentrate on writing the needed documents to describe our project. Hard but useful task to fix the minds around a clear definition of what will we do...
So, for 2008 we fix 3 taks :

1. Participating to the 16 festivals ( it is the hardest one)
2. Put in line a definitive website ( it is hard, but achievable )
3. Publish the status of the Association ( should be done by end february of March

Well, a constructive year that begin, with the first festival in rouen, from 15 till 26 of january : Regards sur les cinemas du sud => http://www.touslescinemasdumonde.eu.

La caméra imaginaire

The camera is the instrument by which the images are recorded, but the movie would not exist without the imagination of the spectator. Each one of us creates its one vision of the artwork we are proposed, determined by the culture we belong too. The object of La caméra imaginaire is to explore, analyze and discuss these images that come out from the imagination of each people involved with cinema. It is a place to think about what links individual, cinema and society.

La caméra imaginaire will search to go as near as possible of movies, cinema’s places, and people who make it. In this way we hope to enlight the vision of our readers on the way cinema reflects a life reality.