In 1978, I travelled for the first time in West Africa. More than a quarter of century later, I’m back there,....
looking for the friends met at that time and especially looking for Dade, this wise man living at the end of Sahel. Now he is blind, and he welcome me as a son. We talk about Chekene, one of his sons, lost in Paris. He asks me to find him … Then the film, in Paris and back again in Mali, try to find this lost son, until… This film is a story inside an African family and in two worlds : one in Africa with its traditions and hopes, the other one in Europe with its dreams and disappointments.
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Technical data :
duration
52 minutes
camera
Christian von der Heyden
sound
Christian von der Heyden
editing
Daniel Coche
music
Drahmane Koulibaly
translations
Safiatou Traoré, Irène Arthur
a coproduction
dora films / Cagifragilis
grants
Agence culturelle d'Alsace,
Drac, Ministère de la Culture
festivals
Ecrans du Réel Le Mans France 2007 / FIFAI La Réunion 2008/ Quintessence - Festival International du Film de Ouidah Bénin 2009 : price for best documentary film/ Fespaco 2009 out of competition
Alfonso a quitté son sombre garage à l'âge de dix-huit ans pour voir "la lumière" et vivre sa passion : le chant. Depuis il a fondé avec sa compagne, Flora, une chorale d'enfants : les Gospel Kids.
The work of Emile Gallé (1846-1904)is one of the essential references in Art Nouveau. The master of the Ecole de Nancy was a glassmaker, a cabinetmaker,a ceramist, but also a commited humanist and a botanist of repute who has left an important scientific work. Gallé studied and skatched Lorraine's flora with meticulous care. I found inspiration in the shapes, the curves and details of some flowers, but also some insects to create vases and furniture.
“I see neither forms nor light, nothing, absolutely nothing. But I’m not in the dark, I see nothing“, says Jean-Michel, who is blind from birth, like the other characters in the film.