Keyword : Cinéma (Cinema)

Gary Cooper and the russian novelist

Simon Njami

The lights slowly go out. The screen lights up. Some throats are cleared, some seats creak and the show begins. Panorama : a landscape in the distance. A desert. The blurred silhouette of a rider moves forward. Sequence shot : the rider moves towards us until we can distinguish his features, then he stops. He takes off his hat and wipes his face with a dirty handkerchief. He puts his hat back on and continues to come forward towards us, staring at a spot we cannot see. Reverse shot : a small village with its church steeple...

"Image, blowing in the wind" interview with Djibril Diop Mambety

Simon Njami

Djibril Diop Mambety, senegalese film-maker, interviewed by Simon Njami

Simon Njami - To address film in order to discuss photography was a crazy idea. And crazier still was interrogating Djibril Diop Mambety, the filmmaker who's given Africa a new rhythm, a new image, an unexpected point of view, the filmmaker whose fans had given up hope that he'd ever make another film. Almost 20 years have elapsed since his two cult films, Touki Bouki and Badou boy were released. The project he's currently editing, Les Hyènes, is an adaptation of F. Durrenmatt's "La visite de la vieille dame". The interview was not a disappointment. We knew what we were after: a loose discussion of the nature of photography, the meanderings and digressions of a conversation blowing in the wind, because only the wind...