The story might be that of a bad boy who, following having “does too much stupidity, cheating on his fiancée“, is addressed to a genius to get out of trouble, which genius gives him five cowries, shells allowing him to erase his faults. It’s up to him to make good use of them… This pitch is the one imagined by Kiné Niang.The 30-year-old young woman is one of the students who started classes this week at the Kourtrajmé school, specializing in screenwriting.
Dakar school is the third to open since that of Montfermeil, in the Parisian suburbs. Ladj Ly had realized there, in 2018, the dream of giving back what he owed them to the poor neighborhoods where he had grown up and made his debut by filming the urban violence of 2005. Since then, another establishment has been inaugurated in Marseille, with the same profession of faith to offer, free of charge and without condition of diploma or age, training in cinema and audiovisual professions.
In 2018, at the same time as he opened Montfermeil, Ladj Ly edited the long version of the short film Wretched. For school, he was already thinking of Africa, where his Malian parents are from and with which he has strong ties. The success of Miserables, the jury prize at the Cannes festival, the selection for the Oscars and the millions of admissions have not diverted him from ancestral horizons.
The Kourtrajmé School opens its doors in Dakar, sponsored by @OmarSy
For the first 2 courses – Script & Directing – and for 3 years, INA will share its expertise in #formation to the trades of#audio-visual and cinema
With the support of @AFD_France pic.twitter.com/vx32XfYohF
— ina_audiovisual (@Ina_audiovisual) January 19, 2022
The Dakar school, in an old and beautiful professional building converted into a cultural space close to the heart of the capital, is the first in Africa. Ladj Ly has a dozen projects “pretty much everywhere” on the continent, “in Mali, Abidjan, Burkina…“
Ladj Ly and Toumani Sangaré, co-founder in 1995 of the film collective Kourtrajmé and co-director of the school, do not hide that their first African teaching might have taken place in Mali, where they have their roots. The turmoil in which the country is caught did not allow it.
Even in more peaceful Senegal, Ladj Ly and his partners would have appreciated a few “cowries” to make the task easier. The period was “complicated with the Covid“, recalls Ladj Ly. Raising the funds was not easy and bureaucratic red tape slowed down the company. Notoriety, “it opens a lot of doors“, he said, “but it remains the obstacle course to say that we want to create free schools, open to all“.
The artist was caught up in February 2021 by an investigation in France for breach of trust and money laundering, targeting the association which oversees the school. He and his brother were heard by the police. The investigations are complete and the Public Prosecutor’s Office says it is examining the possible follow-up.
“The investigation is over“, says Ladj Ly. He speaks of an attempt to “sabotage” and of “foolery” written by a former employee: “Our school, it bothers a lot of people, they did everything to destroy it“. “The important thing is that the school exists and we continue to open some everywhere“. Montfermeil, Marseille, now Dakar, and soon Madrid.
“Senegal has become essential in terms of audiovisual production, in particular series“, says co-director Sangaré. Many international productions are filmed there, the technicians are “quality“and spaces”incredible“, all of this “five hours from Paris“by plane, he explains.
They should be fourteen, seven young women and as many men, all Senegalese (not out of bias but out of temporary convenience), to train in the trade for five months. After the student screenwriters, chosen from hundreds of candidates, the school will welcome eighteen apprentice directors in June.
A year following being selected, Kiné Niang, the apprentice screenwriter, was regarding to start a management internship when she was called back. Graduated in statistics but “writing enthusiast“, she saw that “it was a chance and that I should not miss it“.
She and the others started work on Tuesday. “We started the course with the question: why do you write?“, says their trainer, the screenwriter Dialika Sané who has worked on several television series. The answers were “very inspiring, sometimes absurd, sometimes poetic“. But all “have understood the profession of screenwriter, the very essence of the profession, which is to project on the screen what cannot necessarily be said by other means“.
