MEDI1TV Afrique : Zam Zam d’Eugène Édobé, le photographe de la vie Baudouin Mouanda et le film Chikha - 29/03/2025
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00:00It is with great pleasure that I meet you again on Mediantv for this new Escale Culture
00:14au coeur de l'Afrique and as you know, we will do a complete tour of the cultural and
00:19artistic news on our continent and we start with our guest of the day.
00:30And today we have the immense pleasure of welcoming the author, the writer Eugène Ebaudet.
00:37He is also the administrator of the new chair of African literature and arts
00:44within the Royal Academy. He has been with us since Berlin, we will talk about it
00:51for a conference and we can't wait to find out what's going on. He is with us, hello Eugène.
00:58Hello, thank you for inviting me to your antenna.
01:02It is a great pleasure and we received you a few weeks ago in Africa in Culture and
01:11then we made an appointment for the release of your new book Zemzem, which
01:18intrigued us a lot, since there is this aura of a mystical tale.
01:25Moreover, Zemzem refers directly to the miraculous water mentioned in Islam.
01:34How did the idea of this book come to you, Eugène?
01:40Two main reasons. The first is that it seemed to me that we had entered an era of virilism,
01:49even of brutalism, and that the world was shifting towards acute insensitivity.
01:59And how to resolve this acute insensitivity? Well, by summoning poetry, by summoning,
02:05you said it, the miracle. And we know how much water is an important resource for the living,
02:15for our humanity, and that if we fear the melting of glaciers because the sea level
02:23may rise and submerge the populations, it does not prevent the water from being a resource
02:31that we absolutely need to continue the adventure of the living. And you said it, there is both
02:39the miraculous source on the side of the sea and on the side of spirituality, but there is also
02:47water, which is an important resource when a great fire breaks out.
02:53And precisely in the kingdom of Pamanga, which I call upon here, there is a fire that devastates everything,
03:02and we need a miraculous extinguisher.
03:06Miraculous as if, since we are evoking the current situation of the world, which has reached
03:13rarely reached levels of brutality, and it is true that as if water was our, in a way,
03:21we needed a miracle to purify ourselves, to wash away the human condition,
03:28or at least what it has become lately. And you choose, you take on the voice of the metaphor,
03:35of poetry. Is it perhaps easier? In any case, can we better face the horror of the world?
03:45Well, the voice of poetry and the voice of a form of allegory to which you allude
03:53comes from the history of literature, from the records that we can summon to speak to others
04:03and to speak to ourselves. When situations become complex, almost blocked,
04:12because the antagonisms are strong, well, you know that, for example, in The Tale of the Thousand and One Nights,
04:20it is Sheherazade who comes back to calm the spirits and above all who blocks the process of the tragic.
04:29And here in Zamzam, it is also a question of an extraordinary feminine figure,
04:37it is Onysha who leaves her kingdom because she refused to marry an old nobleman
04:45and she knocks on the door of another kingdom and Sultan Boquito, who is a feared and sometimes formidable sultan,
04:55when his advisors tell him, especially Sultan, don't open your door to this young woman,
05:04well, the sultan says, no, I will receive her because she asks to be heard.
05:11And so between Sultan Boquito and Onysha there is a pact, a pact that is sealed around a simple idea.
05:22Onysha tells the sultan that she will love the ideas, and the ideas come from literature,
05:31the ideas come from the tale, the ideas come from poetry, the ideas come from theatre, the ideas come from an ability to invent.
05:41And this ability to invent, she puts it at the service of the common good,
05:46and this common good is at the advantage of both the kingdom of Pamanga, but also beyond,
05:55because she organises fantastic events that make sure that the kingdom of Pamanga is the one where many people from various backgrounds gather.
06:07And the sultan tells her, so you, Onysha, you will sow the ideas and we will harvest them, we will harvest them together.
06:17Harvested together, this is the pact that this novel proposes.
06:23Harvested together, and so the protagonist is a woman, Onysha.
06:28Does the salvation of man necessarily go through the woman?
06:34The salvation of humanity goes through precisely the one through which we come into the world.
06:42And it turns out that we can have extraordinary technical, technological inventions.
06:49We talk a lot about artificial intelligence, but we can't do without our mothers.
06:56We can't do without our sisters.
06:59It is a question of both mothers, but also of sorority,
07:03but also of the ability to give breath to our humanity, which seems a little stifled, a little sad.
07:11And moreover, it is a novel that uses a kind of metaphor around the end of sadness to go towards shared joy.
07:25And it is also a symbolic way, if you will, to tell all the events that we have put into practice
07:35thanks to the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco, where we have received female voices,
07:40where we have put invention, literature, at the beginning of the arts.
07:45And you know how much His Majesty King Mohammed VI pays attention to culture
07:51because he considers it to be the best locomotives to make us go through tragedy,
07:58to make us go through mutual ignorance and that we go towards horizons where, for example,
08:05Africa is a horizon of thought, a horizon of generosity, a horizon to beat the cards,
08:12including our humanity, in its ability to be able to listen to each other,
08:19to be able to cooperate and to be able to expose the best that it offers to each other.
08:29And you have been talking to us since Berlin, where you were very welcome.
08:35You managed to devote ten minutes to us and we thank you for that.
08:40Eugène, briefly, you are in Berlin, it's about literature, it's about Africa.
08:45Can you tell us about it?
08:48Yes, I am in Berlin.
08:50Earlier, I went to the Humboldt Museum Forum in Berlin to visit a museum that was closed on Tuesday.
09:00But in an exceptional way, the doors of the museum were open to me
09:04and I went to sit on the throne of Sultan Ndoye, who arrived in Berlin in 1906.
09:15And this throne, it would be interesting if Africa, which revives and recovers its artistic treasures,
09:29could have an idea of generosity with these treasures.
09:36It's not just about recovering, it's about putting cultural goods in circulation
09:42that are both African geniuses, but also human geniuses.
09:47And you see, at the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco and the Chair of African Literature and Arts,
09:53it will be about talking about what it does.
09:56And the Embassy of Cameroon, which opens its doors to me and which has invited many ambassadors from the continent,
10:03is waiting for us to be stronger together, for us to sow ideas,
10:09and for us to nurture them together, as Onysha and Sultan Boukidou propose.
10:17In any case, thank you both for being with us.
10:20It is always a pleasure and an honour to receive you. Thank you very much.
10:25It is I who thank you, and also all the embassies that have gathered here at the Embassy of Cameroon in Berlin.
10:33The Embassy of Cameroon in Berlin
10:40And after talking about literature, art, with Baudouin Mouanda, a Congolese photographer,
10:45members of the A.I.Lili Generation and of Afrique Invisue,
10:50after a few years spent studying law at the University of Brazzaville,
10:54he began his career in 1993 by chronicling the Brazzaville life for newspapers
11:00and was nicknamed Fontoine Baudouin.
11:03Mouanda has always been deeply attached to the history of his country,
11:08to the subjects he questions and to the consequences of the wars that destroyed his native country.
11:13He turned away from the conformism and the so-called classic photo,
11:17such as the family photo or the souvenir photo, to attach himself to the history of his country.
11:22A first sensitive work in black and white was born from his research on the consequences of the war,
11:26which already gives an overview of his sensitivity as a photographer.
11:30Let's listen to it right away.
11:32When I arrived in Brazzaville, I realized that many people were talking about floods.
11:36Some people even believed that floods were not natural phenomena.
11:42They sometimes started to say that it was a political problem.
11:47I found that abnormal.
11:49Why? Because I thought that floods,
11:52all that is climate change, are natural phenomena.
11:56And that's where I started to think,
12:00to say to myself, shouldn't I be able to do a documentary work
12:04to be able to try a little to mobilize, to sensitize the population on this issue?
12:10I started to do a work that was much more documentary,
12:14in a neighborhood that was well flooded.
12:17And finally, I realized that it was not really very important
12:22because everyone could have the same topics,
12:27and we had to find a much more original side.
12:30So what happened to me?
12:32I went to neighborhoods where they were flooded.
12:35I started to meet families who had suffered from floods.
12:40I talked to them about the project I had in mind.
12:45That is to say, I went in, I photographed the limits of water in their houses
12:49and all the scenery they had.
12:51So the ideal was to do the same work again.
12:54Since there is a project that I really care about,
12:57which is the construction of a cultural space.
13:00In the cultural space, there is a basement that will house a photo gallery.
13:05During this period, I spent a lot more time at the site
13:11to keep an eye on this gallery, on the site, on everything that was happening.
13:17The most important thing that caught my attention
13:21was the fact that the 160 square meter gallery was flooded by rainwater.
13:26The fact that it was flooded by rainwater,
13:28I started to question myself, saying to myself,
13:30we are in the middle of a lockdown.
13:32I think that with these waters, I can find a subject.
13:36I have to do a subject.
13:38And finally, that's where the idea came from,
13:40to be able to commit myself to doing this work.
13:43So I am very happy because this work has won three awards in France,
13:50including in other European cities.
13:54It also makes it possible for people to get to know this problem a little bit.
14:01The one who defines himself as a photographer of life
14:04pursues serialism, realism, poetry, questioning.
14:07After hip-hop and society, the sidewalk of knowledge
14:10and Congo Glees Dreams, by which he offers a very personal vision
14:14of the marriage between dream and enchantment.
14:17In 2017, he returns with the ghost of Corniche.
14:20Baudouin Mondain constantly surprises us with his images of the African real,
14:25of life in Congo and the atmospheres of Brazzaville.
14:28His series on the sand, Society of Ambassadors and Elegant People,
14:32has had a terrible quasi-planetary success.
14:35Moreover, the series on the sidewalk of knowledge reveals high school students
14:39who come to read and work on public toilets,
14:42without electricity at home.
14:44Baudouin plays with emotions, between shadow and light.
14:47In his report to the image, Baudouin Mondain seeks to show realities
14:51while relying on color, staging, setting, work and a certain sense of humor.
14:58As a photographer, I thought it was interesting
15:01to be able to carry out a photographic work,
15:04hence I named the project Skies of Seasons.
15:07In this series of photos, I will talk about a few,
15:12it could be interesting for me.
15:14The photo that caught my attention
15:17is the large photo in which we see Mr. Mokarata
15:21looking up at the sky with two children.
15:24And that's where it really caught my attention,
15:27hence I named the project Skies of Seasons.
15:30Because when I met these people,
15:33I asked them the question of knowing,
15:36when there are floods, especially at night,
15:39what is your behavior?
15:41Do you stay at home? Are you outside?
15:44And everyone started to answer me by saying,
15:47when there are storms and others,
15:50no one stays at home,
15:52we are all outside looking at the sky.
15:55And finally, speaking of the kind,
15:58I said to myself, we had to find a title
16:01that really had a link with this issue
16:04of climate change under floods.
16:07And there I thought I could title the project Skies of Seasons.
16:12And in doing this work Skies of Seasons,
16:15there are images that I liked a lot.
16:18For example, there is a lady that I met
16:21in the neighborhood where the center was located,
16:24and I told her, go see these people,
16:27talk to them, ask them if they agree
16:30to participate in this project,
16:33as important as me,
16:35to better communicate with other people.
16:38Other people said yes, some said no.
16:41For those who said yes,
16:43we tried to make the trip with them.
16:46There is a photo that I took
16:48where we see a young teacher
16:50studying, framing the children in the water.
16:53And this is a scene that I saw,
16:56real scenes that I had seen,
16:58that I reproduced in this cave.
17:00And there are other images, for example,
17:03of a lady who is behind her library.
17:06This is a photo that I went to see,
17:08I saw limits of water,
17:10and I asked the lady,
17:12is it really that, when it rains,
17:14your library is really flooded?
17:16She said, of course, because you can see the limits of water.
17:19You can understand that here,
17:21when it rains, we suffer.
17:23And I asked the lady
17:25if she could move her library,
17:27all her living room, to my site,
17:29so that I could reproduce the same scenes
17:31that they are suffering.
17:33And that is why today,
17:35I was able to carry out this project,
17:37and I am happy with this project,
17:39because it works well,
17:41and people meet because they know
17:43this question of floods.
17:45Besides, the Roger Epic Award,
17:47which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year,
17:49this season, thus becoming
17:51the first African photographer
17:53to receive it for this primary series.
17:55The man therefore worked on the theme
17:57of climate change,
17:59realizing it during the first lockdown,
18:01following floods, which regularly hit
18:03the Congolese capital,
18:05storms, earthquakes, but also changes
18:07in the rhythm of the seasons,
18:09which can, at each disaster,
18:11simply upset the daily life of the population.
18:13The artist wanted to precisely
18:15testify to these traumas.
18:17I took pictures, remembering every detail
18:19of the places visited,
18:21and I asked for testimonies
18:23to simply reconstruct
18:25the show of desolation.
18:27The work is done in the flooded site
18:29of his future school of photography
18:31in Brazzaville.
18:33People come with their usual decor,
18:35they pose all this, and they reconstruct
18:37the feet in the water, the reality of their life
18:39and their suffering.
18:41And that is also the work of Baudouin,
18:43to be closer to reality, to give life
18:45to reality.
18:53And right away in the cinema,
18:55with a heart attack, a short film,
18:571994, Fatine, a 17-year-old girl,
18:59lives with her mother, Nadia Chirha,
19:01a professional singer and dancer,
19:03and her grandfather, Hamid Azmour,
19:05in Morocco. Back in the pocket,
19:07Fatine is torn between two opposing voices,
19:09perpetuating the family artistic tradition
19:11or leading a life arranged with
19:13her lover, Youssef, who denigrates
19:15his artistic heritage. Chirha,
19:17directed by Ayyub Layousfi and Zahwa Raji,
19:19has recently been awarded
19:21the Baobab Prize for Best Short Film
19:23at the Africa Film Festival in London.
19:25This award is dedicated to a work
19:27that combines engagement and cultural celebration
19:29with a lot of finesse and intelligence.
19:31Let's watch the trailer.
19:4310 years
20:1310 years
20:1910 years
20:35Chirha, in 25 minutes,
20:37the film plunges into the path of Fatine,
20:39a 17-year-old girl torn between
20:41her lover, Youssef, who totally rejects
20:43her family heritage and her deep attachment
20:45to Haïta's art.
20:47This identity dilemma, exacerbated
20:49by an unexpected ultimatum,
20:51pushes Fatine to make her way
20:53with determination. The directors,
20:55carried by cinematographic influences
20:57anchored in social realism,
20:59adopt a style of antiquity.
21:01Ayyub Layousfi,
21:03inspired by Iranian cinema by Abbas Karostami,
21:05puts in this aesthetic
21:07to illustrate cultural identity,
21:09marked by South Korean filmmakers
21:11like Park Chang-woong
21:13and Bang Joon-ho.
21:15He declares,
21:17I love a moving cinema,
21:19an author's style that reflects my identity,
21:21my culture and my journey.
21:23Layousfi, a trained actor,
21:25enriches her direction
21:27by observing directors like Bernard Herzog
21:29and Mohamed Mouftakir.
21:31Zawarraji, on the other hand,
21:33finds an affinity in the cinema of Ken Loach
21:35or in the authenticity
21:37of the documentary of inspirations
21:39that we find in this short film.
21:41Shehra, watch urgently.
21:51And before we leave,
21:53place at the opening of the Karlsik Villa,
21:55which has officially opened its doors
21:57in the form of a museum of the memory of Casablanca,
21:59a space designed
22:01to trace the evolution of the city
22:03through its architecture,
22:05its history and its urbanism.
22:07Restored by the architect Salimah Neji,
22:09this emblematic residence of the early 20th century
22:11welcomes works
22:13of the movement of the school of Casablanca
22:15as well as sculptures of the Krabbej Kram,
22:17the white city,
22:19to celebrate the inauguration of the museum
22:21of the memory of Casablanca.
22:23Installed within the Karlsik Villa,
22:25this event marks an important step,
22:27essential for the metropolis,
22:29which has a space dedicated to its history
22:31and its heritage.
22:33The Director of Culture and Communication
22:35emphasized the importance of this project.
22:37He said, today we will inaugurate
22:39the first museum dedicated to the city of Casablanca.
22:41This city needed a place
22:43that tells its history and values
22:45its heritage, whether material
22:47or immaterial.
22:49This inauguration is part of the vision
22:51of King Mohammed VI and the creation
22:53of the National Foundation of Museums.
22:55Casablanca is often presented as a modern city
22:57or with international influence,
22:59but it also has a rich history.
23:01We have just rediscovered the beauty
23:03and depth of its past.
23:05Let's take a look.
23:31Casablanca Museum
24:01monks
24:05scholars
24:09painters
24:13We are very happy here!
24:15There is a new cultural space
24:17which brings us to Babylon.
24:19This is one of the places
24:21which has old records for history
24:23We are very happy to be here
24:25This is one of the places
24:27which has old records for history
24:29The best thing about it is that you have the cultural spaces,
24:32you have the artistic spaces like this,
24:34and the new museum.
24:36It's a great success and I hope we'll have more events like this one.
24:48And it's with these beautiful images that Africa en Culture ends.
24:53Thank you for being with us and we'll see you next week.
24:56Until then, take care.
24:59♪♪♪