2023-05-17 10:48:16
I also hope that, thanks to this prize, projects dear to my heart, which are sleeping in cupboards, will wake up, including several documentaries.”
On the new generation, I have always been and I will remain optimistic. What we mightn’t do, they will. The fact that there are two African films in competition this year is a good sign. We have problems in Mali and Niger because unfortunately, for 50 years, our leaders do not want to understand the importance of cinema.
In other countries, the cinema is developing well. In Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria, there is great vitality. What is a bit of a shame for me is that our films are deprived of the chance to be seen by European and American viewers.”
And I’m sure that distribution-level censorship is going to break down eventually. When I say censorship, it’s because we’re preventing the release of African films in large cinemas, these popular cinemas. Take the case of France for example. Very few African films are distributed correctly in the cinemas of the country, even though the public has always been at the cinema.
It’s a lot of contempt. We simply don’t want to put filmmakers from Africa and those from the West on the same level. However, cinema is precisely going to meet the other. We’ve been trying to make quality films for 50 years, but we see it on the screens. Me, I had the chance to see my films distributed correctly. But the others? To deprive the public of such films is to feed a form of misunderstanding regarding Africa. And when misunderstanding sets in, relations between countries become complicated. It’s a lose-lose combo.”
© 2023 AFP
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