MEDI1TV Afrique : Cinéma, Art et littérature - 21/12/2024
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00:00It is with great pleasure that I meet you on Mediantv for this new Escale Culture at the heart of Africa.
00:16In a few moments we will talk about cinema, in particular documentary cinema with Soudan.
00:21Remember this real poetic cinematographic haunt signed Hid Medeb.
00:26We will also talk about art with Seneso who made us vibrate for his love for Dakar and its neighborhoods.
00:34But first of all, place to our guest of the day.
00:37And today, we have the immense pleasure of welcoming an author that we no longer present, Eugène Ebaudet.
00:50Dressed in the sky, the balcony of God or the rose in the yellow bush, he is with us. Hello Eugène.
00:58Hello.
01:01Thank you for being with us. You are a renowned author and you work a lot for literature, arts in general.
01:16And speaking to each other before doing this show, we were talking about the literary news which is very rich.
01:24Not long ago you were in Benin. Do we see a real, not renewal, but a kind of expansion of African literature?
01:38Let's say that African literature has been expanding for a long time.
01:44But we are used to assign it to the youth.
01:49Even though to the well-born souls, youth does not wait for the number of years.
01:56Wisdom, in any case, does not wait for the number of years.
01:59So I come back from Benin, it is true, where the emphasis was put on youth literature.
02:08That is to say, what writing and orality can do to educate, to awaken, to entertain and to awaken young minds.
02:23On this occasion, I had the opportunity to present one of my latest books, which you were not lucky enough to quote.
02:32It is the grandfather Widi in the Sahel.
02:35And you see, with this book of tales, it is both the memories of my childhood,
02:41since this childhood was pierced by stories, by legends, by tales.
02:47And I wanted to address young minds to tell them that the territory called the Sahel,
02:56which is described as an area plagued by misfortune,
03:01still has wisdom and tradition that should be visited.
03:06And that traumatic news exists, it is true.
03:11Criminal news takes place, it is also true.
03:15And that insecurity can reign in some African territories, alas, it is also true.
03:21But beyond all these difficulties, there are still parameters that are always permanent.
03:30They constitute literature, they constitute wisdom,
03:36they constitute the heritages that our ancestors left us,
03:41and that it is necessary to continue and to make them circulate.
03:46Because precisely, Mr. Jeanne Ebodé,
03:49we blame this new generation of African authors
03:55for caricaturing Africa a little bit,
03:58where we sometimes find ourselves in a certain miserability,
04:01and to put our common heritage in Africa,
04:04so the orality and its importance, its essence, aside.
04:07And there you tell me that there is a real,
04:09as you said, African literature is still expanding,
04:12but do we come back, if you prefer, to the origin, to the very essence?
04:20Coming back to the essence, it is a beautiful proposition that you formulate there,
04:26because it allows us to visit, as we say, the fundamentals.
04:31The fundamentals are what does not move,
04:33it is what is precisely permanent, what is solid,
04:36and it is what allows for both roots, but also projections.
04:43Rooted, projected.
04:46These are two elements that can constitute the menu of literary conversations,
04:53while also being vigilant that it is not in literature to escape reality.
05:06It is even necessary, when one is a writer, to take this into account,
05:10hence what is called engagement in writing.
05:13There is also the ability, by revisiting the elements that have been allocated to us,
05:22to do something else.
05:25It is this other thing that, for my part, I also try to feed,
05:31by making sure that, whether it is the story, the legend, or the great characters,
05:40you know that Djibril Tamsyrnyan, a great African historian,
05:45through the orality that you mentioned earlier,
05:51revisited an extremely important part of medieval African history,
05:57through the emperor Sundiata Keita.
06:01He showed that we could rely on orality to go towards writing,
06:07and to intensify a story that had been hidden, forgotten, or ridiculed.
06:15So, what you said about the attitude of some writers to caricature,
06:22but it is not only about writers.
06:24You know that in your profession you also fight reductionism, caricatures,
06:33and that is why you mobilize several stakeholders
06:38to have several reflections from a situation.
06:43As far as I am concerned, I speak of literature from several poles.
06:50The creative pole that I lead, the educational, narrative, and intellectual pole
06:57that the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco also allowed me to animate
07:03through the chair of literature and African arts of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco.
07:08I must say that this institution, created in 1977 by His Majesty Hassan II,
07:17that God assists him in his rest and gives him the ability to continue
07:28by giving him time and space to inspire us,
07:31well, it so happens that at the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco,
07:34the main idea was that this academy should grapple with the problems of its time.
07:41In literature, which is what we do under the direction of Professor Abdeljalil Lajomri,
07:48we do not avoid anything, we do not caricature anything.
07:51On the contrary, we invite intellectuals, authors,
07:58we invite renowned researchers who are starting to produce essays,
08:11reflections on literature, to come so that we can discuss together,
08:18so that we can enrich the reception of literature and extend it.
08:26They came to the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco in the last six months.
08:31The Nobel Prize, Wole Soyinka,
08:34followed by another Nobel Prize, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clésiaud,
08:40but also extremely important intellectuals such as Souleymane Bachir-Diagne,
08:46such as François-Xavier Fauvel, who is at the Collège de France,
08:52and many other intellectuals to precisely re-weave the link with history,
09:01with the past, not only the African past, but the great past of humanity.
09:08And it is in your honour, Mr Eugène Neybaudet,
09:12because you work a lot on the front of the stage
09:16for the expansion of the literature, of the arts in general.
09:22And briefly, since we are going to run out of time,
09:25I would like you to tell us, before leaving us,
09:28about your next opus, which will soon be released, Zamzam.
09:32Can you tell us about it briefly?
09:36Listen, I come back from Saudi Arabia,
09:39where I had the honour of being able to attend an extraordinary exhibition
09:45on ancient manuscripts.
09:47And it was a question, in these manuscripts, of surahs, hadiths,
09:55interpretations that were made on the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad.
10:03Well, I come back with the feeling of having encountered,
10:11and the revelation, of course, the great mystery,
10:15and also everything that we have absolutely amazing to share,
10:22in terms of spirituality, in terms of writing,
10:25because I saw the writings in Kufik.
10:28I saw how, from Othman, the successor of the Prophet,
10:38the writings allowed men to continue to weave the thread
10:44of their gathering, of their unity, of their happiness,
10:49both here and beyond.
10:52So, Zamzam evokes, of course, a miraculous water.
10:56Zamzam also evokes a character in which,
11:01I wouldn't want to say too much,
11:03the reader has to make his own religion, if I may say so,
11:07but it is a character who starts from a calamity,
11:11that is, he is mocked, he is degraded,
11:17because the woman he loved found someone else, a poet, to desire.
11:23But it turns out that it is this character,
11:25who, thanks to a miraculous water,
11:28will put out a fire that was devastating for the community
11:34and devastating for the kingdom in which he lived.
11:37In short, it is a novel that speaks to us a lot
11:40and I hope you will read it as soon as it comes out,
11:43but it is for next March.
11:46With great pleasure.
11:47And we will always be at the Geneva 2 meeting.
11:50Thank you very much for being with us.
11:53It is I who thank you for the antenna and the space you gave me.
11:57Thank you very much.
11:58Thank you very much.
12:05And we continue this escalation in the heart of Africa
12:08by talking about art with the Senegalese plastic artist
12:11Faly Seneso, who lives and works in Dakar
12:14and his starting point, his universe,
12:16the neighborhood of Kolobane,
12:18in the market, one of the oldest and one of the most famous in Dakar.
12:21The particularity of this market is that we sell everything,
12:25absolutely everything, in a sound and festive atmosphere
12:28where merchants and customers meet,
12:30music, engine noise,
12:32declamations.
12:33Merchants rhythm this place of informal meetings,
12:35always in motion.
12:37He will say, I am fascinated by drawing and writing
12:40since my youngest years.
12:41I live in Dakar, in the neighborhood of Kolobane,
12:43a business center where indescribable scenes take place every day.
12:48And this is a very rich place of inspiration for an artist
12:52who offers an incessant discovery
12:55by its colors, its urban setting, its social climate,
12:58the order and disorder of everyday life.
13:02The work I presented here is an underglass work,
13:05which is a traditional technique of Senegal,
13:07which I revisited, which I worked on my own,
13:10in my own way.
13:11Thus, I communicated between them,
13:14the objects and the paint,
13:16between the glass and the plywood,
13:18which creates the depth.
13:19Here you have the work called
13:23Qui prend la plume.
13:24These are real feathers that I used.
13:26Here there is cotton.
13:27Here we can see the painting,
13:29this abstract part.
13:31This work represents French-speaking Africa.
13:34The presence of the French language in Africa,
13:37is French-speaking Africa, which is there.
13:39Here I represented in the painting,
13:42here a shell, which is the Gallic shell,
13:44and which detaches its feathers,
13:46which is quite present in the space of the work,
13:49which imposes itself, which dominates a little.
13:53But I also created a provocative aspect,
13:57so that the spectator can have windows,
14:02perspectives to see in their own way.
14:05There is this, which we can consider
14:07as a part of Africa,
14:10and the shell with the feathers,
14:12as the French language.
14:13And so here we have this junction
14:15which makes French-speaking Africa,
14:17which translates a little what we read here today.
14:21It is a tribute for me,
14:23to the men of African letters,
14:25and to the writers of French literature,
14:29who have honoured my inspiration since my youngest age.
14:31The underglass has a narrative function.
14:34The underglass is traditional in Senegal.
14:36It balances the objects that I put, the glass,
14:39and then inside it creates chaos,
14:42also throughout the universe.
14:43And so I also take pictures myself,
14:46from time to time, and cut them,
14:48then glue them,
14:49so that I have the same staff,
14:50the same gestures, the same facts.
14:51This is for me to realize the moments,
14:53and to tell real stories.
14:56It must be said that the work of Faly Seneso
14:58has been influenced by a recurring preoccupation.
15:01Why continue to paint?
15:03For him, any event, any object, any action
15:06is worthy of becoming a pictorial subject.
15:08And so he began to collect objects
15:12and make them communicate with each other
15:14under glass plates.
15:15Indeed, there is a clear link
15:17between the object and its reality,
15:19which appears clearly under the glass.
15:22This is how he adopted a personal technique
15:25of installation under glass,
15:27a totally innovative, creative technique
15:30that we owe to this outstanding artist.
15:34I am self-taught.
15:36I gave myself the pleasure of observing,
15:38of questioning.
15:39And to get in touch with reality,
15:41I tried to find the things
15:44that were within me.
15:47So I started doing under glass,
15:51doing work on urbanism.
15:54But at one point, I also wanted to see
15:56what was happening on the other side of the world.
15:58How so?
15:59Yes, while making my subject universal.
16:02So, return to nature,
16:04because we are dust,
16:06and we will return to dust.
16:08At the beginning, you talked about a person
16:10who trained you.
16:11I met Germaine Antaguey on TV,
16:13who was able to promote my possibilities.
16:15She saw my first works,
16:18and she proposed me to make a series
16:21that she was able to exhibit.
16:23I came as an invited artist.
16:25And that's when it all started
16:28to attract the public, the general public.
16:33At Senesaw, Colobane is above all
16:35its source of permanent inspiration.
16:37Because of its colors, its movements,
16:39the constant order and disorder
16:41of everyday life, the market
16:43has become, for him,
16:45a true source of productivity.
16:47Falli sometimes uses writing,
16:49sometimes pictorial representation,
16:51when it seems more eloquent to him.
16:54Hence this artistic questioning,
16:56he will say, between image and word,
16:58where is my reality?
17:00Falli observes, photographs, then cuts,
17:02frosts, recomposes all kinds of materials.
17:05It must be said that his works
17:07are a kind of metaphor
17:09in the underglazing of all these objects
17:11that make life in Colobane.
17:13He would also say,
17:15any collected object becomes
17:17a pictorial object worthy of interest.
17:19And the glass acts precisely
17:21as a magnifying mirror
17:23that reveals it and gives it a second life.
17:27In Africa, there is a history with cotton.
17:29Your support is cotton.
17:31Since cats.
17:33The background I'm working on
17:35is light in the dark.
17:37As you can see,
17:39for the background,
17:41for example,
17:43everything is dark
17:45and there is light that shines.
17:47Yes, that's it.
17:49And there, it's the beauty of the beautiful.
17:51It's a metaphor,
17:53to talk about beauty,
17:55where it can arise.
17:57We finish with this work.
17:59You also make small models,
18:01you make big ones.
18:03It's always the same principle here.
18:05Yes, that's it.
18:07But you also have to know
18:09that it's vanity.
18:11The kind of dead nature,
18:13the effect of superposition
18:15is also important.
18:17And the effect of light
18:19in security.
18:21Do you have a last word?
18:23Obviously, you are very excited today.
18:25I am very happy to be here.
18:27I thank Christophe
18:29for sharing with me.
18:31We spent a lot of time
18:33preparing this exhibition.
18:35And I think
18:37we were able to build
18:39a story that deserves to be told.
18:41And that's what we are telling today.
18:47Let's talk about cinema.
18:49After 30 years of religious
18:51and military dictatorship
18:53and years of civil war,
18:55on April 11, 2019,
18:57we see the fall of the dictator
18:59Shahjahan, Rufaida, Maha,
19:01Samah, Hamza, Al-Tahir, Sabri.
19:03These are some of the faces
19:05of this Sudanese revolution
19:07highlighted by Hind Madab
19:09following the struggle of ordinary citizens
19:11to realize the dream of freedom,
19:13equality and change.
19:15This film documents the transition
19:17of the military dictatorship
19:19to a civil government
19:21or Sudan between fierce repression
19:23and first political victories.
19:25This is Hind Madab.
19:55In my father's life,
19:57Abdel Wahab used to tell me
19:59about his dream.
20:01The dream of the Arab world
20:03changing its rule
20:05and achieving a feminist revolution.
20:25When I found you,
20:27I also started dreaming with you.
20:39Sudan, remember Hind Madab,
20:41the director of this documentary
20:43and explains that this work
20:45is inspired by her previous film
20:47Paris Stalingrad.
20:49During the shooting of this film,
20:51Hind Madab had filmed
20:53a Sudanese poet
20:55who told her
20:57the importance of speech,
20:59of oral transmission,
21:01of poetry in her country.
21:03At the time of the revolution,
21:05Hind Madab went to Khartoum
21:07where she met Shajan, Rufayda,
21:09Maha, Samah, Hamza, Al-Tahir,
21:11Sabri with these young people.
21:13She made friends
21:15and followed them
21:17in this social and political transition
21:19through their speech.
21:21First of all,
21:23Sudan, remember
21:25won 5 prizes at Final Cut
21:27in Venice in 2023.
21:35Before leaving us in Africa
21:37in culture,
21:39there is this exhibition
21:41dedicated to the albinos of Brazzaville.
21:43This photo exhibition is held
21:45in the Congolese capital
21:47at the initiative of the
21:49Swiss photographer Pierre-William Henry.
21:51The pictures show
21:53the different facets
21:55of the lives of these people
21:57often stigmatized.
21:59It is the Swiss William Henry
22:01who took these portraits.
22:03He says there are many people
22:05who do not even know how albinos live.
22:07They have skin cancer,
22:09they must always be covered.
22:11It's complicated.
22:13The problems of albinos are not easy.
22:15It's another world.
22:17There are the scenes
22:19of everyday life
22:21or the discrimination of albinos
22:23at school, at the hospital
22:25or in other environments.
22:27A very strong exhibition
22:29on the human side
22:31which highlights
22:33the lives of albinos,
22:35often stigmatized.
22:37We are at the end of Africa in culture.
22:39Thank you for being with us.
22:41See you next week.
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