Keeping to the narrative style of The Wanderers and The Dove’s Lost Necklace, Nacer Khemir makes a staggeringly beautiful film, as fascinating as it is disorienting. We are easily lost in this maze as narratives intertwine and the story takes on the meaning we want it to have, but we accept so readily because it takes us to a world where poetry transcends realism. It would be a shame to only see in it a drug made to satisfy the latent orientalists within us all: this appeal to dreams restores the relevance of imagination in thoughts, that of opening the…

« In the past, children were married so they would leave home; now we marry them to bring them home », says Ahmed’s mother: the day after his wedding, he leaves to try his luck abroad. His wife Zeinab, strained as she waits for him to come back, lulls to sleep the child she is carrying to postpone the date of birth. But time goes past, and loneliness increases… One might think that L’enfant endormi is the fictional counterpart to Yasmine Kassari’s beautiful documentary Quand les hommes pleurent, in which she captures the painful stories of clandestine Moroccan immigrants in Spain. Indeed,…

Gilli Apter : J’ai étudié la réalisation à l’AFDA, une école de cinéma de Johannesburg. J’habite à Sandton qui est une banlieue au Nord de la province du Gauteng et je travaille dans divers secteurs de l’industrie du film en tant que réalisatrice free lance. « SA/X » c’est pour « South Africa » (Afrique du Sud) et le chiffre romain X (10), c’est pour les dix ans après la fin de l’apartheid. SL : Quel regard portez-vous sur ces deux programmes sud-africains du Festival de Clermont-Ferrand ainsi que sur les autres programmes ? GA : Je pense que c’était un mélange intéressant de…

L’édition 2007 du Festival du Court Métrage de Clermont-Ferrand a été l’occasion d’assister à deux programmes sud-africains – Panorama Afrique du Sud. (1) Ces programmes offraient un aperçu d’une production de plus en plus importante et qui constitue un laboratoire pour la créativité d’un cinéma sud-africain en plein essor.

Never in Arab cinema has a filmmaker so directly suggested that the spectator cease to be one in order to share the questionings of his approach to creation. Interrupting his narrative thrice, Bouzid films his leading actor’s revolt against the role he makes him play. It is so strong and unexpected that we believe it, Lotfi Abdelli’s performance (who was awarded « Best Actor » at the 2006 Carthage Film Festival for this film) largely contributing to the success of this making of graft in the film. When he asks the filmmaker what he’s letting himself in for, he becomes the mirror…

A historical reconstruction film with an almost fifteen-million-euro production budget, a year-and-a-half long shoot and a year of postproduction, soaring violins and great actors: Days of Glory clearly makes the choice of addressing a large audience. There is no reason to look down on it for all that: for one, this film says what it has to say in a profoundly just way and secondly, it has nothing of a smooth-running production and only exists thanks to the commitment from both sides of the Mediterranean. Hollywoodian in ambition, unquestionably, in the style of Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, but here, there…

Nigerian filmmaker Mustapha Alassane was made Knight of the Legion of Honour during the 2007 Cannes Festival. Véronique Cayla, director of the CNC (Editor’s Note: French film institute) made the traditional tribute speech, below, that was followed by the filmmaker’s reply.

After Africa, I will fleece you and A trip to the country, Jean-Marie Teno wanted to pursue his reflection upon the common History between Europe and Africa. The Colonial Misunderstanding (initially entitled Allez dans le monde entier/ Go Forth in the world when first broadcast on Arte in its more condensed 68-minute long version) seeks to understand the reasoning of Europeans as regards to their relation to Africa. It thus focuses on the German missionaries in Namibia, where the Herero Genocide took place in 1904-1907, for which Germany has just officially apologized. Teno does not reconstitute: he questions those still…

There is something deeply moving about the last work of this filmmaker, sadly deceased in 2006: conscious of his illness but never letting it show during the shooting, Henri Duparc made Caramel in guise of a farewell. He did make it like a pompous and pretentious testament for all that, quite the opposite: once more, he contents himself with zooming, like in the opening shot, in Abidjan, the city that became the home of this mixed-race Guinean man who found roots and success there. Anxious to maintain a direct relation with the public and conscious of the changes in distribution…

The film opens with 60s, James-Bond style credits. The enigmatic contract killer played by the director is more like Goldfinger than some character out of a Moroccan film. The film alternates a multitude of key film references from global cinema and modernistic imagery. But contrary to music videos or advertising, the latter never reveals mercantile intentions. It is readily inscribed in a system of references whose codes are recognizable to those who live in the cities of Morocco or elsewhere. In this respect, WWW- What a Wonderful World is a topical manifesto that usefully challenges those who have specific expectations…

Hosted by Jean-Pierre Garcia, Director of the Amiens International Film Festival, Gaston Kaboré’s Cinema Lesson was organized at the’Cinemas of the South’ pavilion by the French Foreign Ministry. You will find its exact transcription down bellow. Gaston Kaboré is at the head of Imagine in Burkina-Faso, a regional production and professional training structure.

A hawker walks into the village. At once, the camera reveals its desire to show the social geography: a high angle shot on the entire village focuses progressively on the women at work – it is they who assure the village livelihood. The beginning of the film is, then, a geography of relations, exchanges and powers. This hawker nicknamed « Mercenary » (Dominique T. Zeïda) is at the centre of a circulation that goes beyond the simple objects he supplies the village: not only does he fix the prize of the stale bread bought on the cheap in the city, but he…