23 MAY — 02 JUNE 2024

23 MAY — 02 JUNE 2024

Aimé Césaire, Le masque des mots

Sarah Maldoror

Martinique / USA

1987, 47'

The director returns to the figure of Aimé Césaire more than ten years after Aimé Césaire — Un homme, une terre. The occasion is a tribute paid to the surrealist poet and activist of the black movement in Miami. In an interview, he recalls his life’s trajectory.

Retrospective

INFO

PREMIERE TYPE

National

ORIGINAL TITLE

Aimé Césaire, Le masque des mots

LANGUAGE

French / English

BIO

After studying theatre and creating the first Black theatre troupe in Paris, Les Griots, Sarah Maldoror studied cinema in Moscow. Her sharp body of work, which consists of 46 films, is the reflection of a bold warrior who is curious, generous, irreverent and who looks out for others, taking poetics beyond every boundary. An outspoken rebel and a resolute humanist, Sarah Maldoror celebrated the engagement of the artist, and art as an act of freedom.

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SAME SECTION MOVIES

“Point Virgule”

Point Virgule is a newspaper for young people and it’s made by young people. In this piece, they talk about the edition and its sections and texts, including articles on racism.

1986, 4'

“Wielopole” Mise en scène du polonais Kantor

Polish director Tadeusz Kantor and the theater company Cricot 2 take the play Wielopole, Wielopole to the stage at the Théàtre des Bouffes du Nord, in Paris. In the play, the stages of Christ’s passion merge with a military nightmare.

1980, 3'

A dessert for Constance

A film that uses comedy as a way to combat racist stereotypes and outdated nationalist ideas, such as the concept of culinary prowess, through a look at the daily lives of African migrants in Paris.

1980, 61'

Abbaye Royale de St. Denis

A short film about all facets of the Parisian Gothic basilica, which features both a cathedral and a necropolis, the latter containing tombs of French kings, from the 10th to the 19th century.

1977, 7'

Aimé Césaire, Un homme une terre

Aimé Césaire was a surrealist, essayist, activist and one of the founders of the négritude movement, a progressive artistic and political current that defended black culture, strongly tied to marxist and anti-colonial ideals.

1976, 57'

Alberto Carlisky

Portrait of Argentine sculptor Alberto Carlisky who, after a militant and journalistic life in Buenos Aires, goes to work in Paris with Ossip Zadkine, a cubist sculptor naturalized in France. Carlisky then develops work in his own name.

1980, 4'

Ana Mercedes Hoyos

Metal fruit bowls and paintings representing the banana. Colombian artist Ana Mercedes Hoyos talks about her influences in a documentary that does not forget issues such as slavery and Afro-Caribbean cultures.

France / Colombia

2008, 13'

And the Dogs Were Quiet

Theater play whose narrative focuses on a rebellion of a man against the enslavement of his people, filmed inside the Musée de l’Homme, in Paris. With performances by Gabriel Glissant and Sarah Maldoror.

Sarah Maldoror, Bernard Favre, Vincent Blanchet

1978, 13'

Assia Djebar

Interview with Algerian author Assia Djebar about her novel Ombre Sultane. Djebar discusses the role of women in the Arab and Muslim world, and her desire for Western or European readers to see themselves in the book’s protagonists.

1987, 7'

Carnival in Bissau

A documentary short that focuses on how the inhabitants of Guinea-Bissau view their black identity and culture, with the annual Carnival celebration as a backdrop.

1980, 18'

Carnival in the Sahel

Carnival is an event and a festivity where the limits can be transgressed in a context brimming with music, sensations and textures. In this film, it is also a starting point for an approach on the history of black culture and colonialism, with concepts of identity and blackness taking center stage.

1979, 28'

Christiane Diop

Sarah Maldoror reports on Christiane Diop, editor of the publishing house Présence africaine, which includes an interview with illustrator Sophie Mondesir, about her work as the first black woman to run a major publishing house in Paris.

1985, 6'

Claudel à Reims

Presentation and representation of The Hostage, a play by French author Paul Claudel at the Théâtre de la Comédie.

1984, 5'

Eia pour Césaire

After the death of the poet and activist Aimé Césaire, friend and subject of many of her films, Sarah Maldoror revisits points of the globe where he traveled to. The film includes interviews with family members and excerpts from her films with and about the poet.

Martinique / France

2009, 58'

Emanuel Ungaro

A look at the stylist Emanuel Ungaro. For him, it all started with the touch, with the sensual rapport that is established with the fabrics of his clothes. For him, fashion is sensuality.

1982, 4'

Fogo, Fire Island

Ilha do Fogo, in Cape Verde, is the setting for this documentary from the 70s produced by the revolutionary government of the new country, and in which the director chose an anthropological approach. The film looks beautifully at a country in the beginning of its independence.

1979, 34'

Foreword to Guns for Banta

An elegy for Sarah Maldoror’s lost film, Guns for Banta, from 1970. This accompanied a woman involved in the struggle for the independence of Guinea and Cape Verde. Financed by the Algerian army, the aim was to use it as propaganda, having been confiscated from Maldoror.

Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnec

2011, 28'

L’ architecture d’inspiration étrangère à Paris

A city has its character, provided by its architecture. But it’s one that is diverse and made up of buildings of foreign inspiration. These are the corners of Paris that we visit here.

1979, 3'

L’ enfant cinéma

Film dedicated to Toto Bissainthe, the Haitian singer that Sarah Maldoror also filmed at an earlier stage. Here, the magic of cinema is summoned and the cinema of the Lumière brothers and other figures that marked the seventh art is revisited. With the participation of French actor Luc Saint-Eloy.

1996, 23'

L’ Hôpital de Léningrad

A story of political imprisonment set in a mental hospital where the Stalin state police placed whoever their opponents were. The narrative is true to the original text, a short story by the Russian writer Victor Serge. In this film, Maldoror directs Roger Blin, Rüdiger Vogler and Anne Wiazemsky. The jazz soundtrack is by Jean-Yves Bosseur and Jean-Louis Chautemps.

1982, 59'