MÉTAMORPHOSE(S)
How can we best exist in societies that our both ours and yet other? How to best navigate institutions that are not always equipped to deal with the issues we face? How to find mystical or rational remedies to heal our wounds? These are questions that traverse the African diasporas. The transformations that exile, having to adapt to new cultures, sickness, or pain subject us to are often minimized and rarely represented on the screen. Captured in documentary, animation, and fiction short films, our seventh season shines a light on these physical and psychic metamorphoses.
Our Patron : Alice Diop
This year’s patron, screenwriter director Alice Diop, has filmed the blind spots of French society for twenty years now. Her film Vers la tendresse / Towards Tenderness (#QL6) won the César for the Best Short Film in 2017. The same year, her feature-length documentary La Permanence / On Call won the Best Film Award in the French Film Competition at the Cinéma du Réel festival in Paris. Her documentary Nous / We won the Best Documentary Award and the Encounters Best Film Award at the Berlinale in 2021. Chosen to represent France at the 2023 Academy Awards, her feature film Saint Omer won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize and the Lion of the Future Award at the Venice Film Festival, and the Prix Louis Delluc and the Prix Jean Vigo 2022.
CINÉASTES / FILMMAKERS
Land of Shadows by Fatima Kaci
documentary - 38min - 2021
Synopsis :
Lost in the middle of an industrial zone in the working-class suburbs of Paris, Bobigny’s Muslim cemetery, a plot dating back to the colonial era, mixes different worlds and temporalities. Fatima Kaci sets out to discover the rituals, voices, and presences of its visitors. In the woven-together voices and troughs of silence, glimpses of a shared Franco-Algerian memory come to light.
Film career : Inédit
Biography :
Fatima Kaci was born to Algerian parents in France in 1992. She grew up in the city of Saint-Denis in the Paris suburbs. After a Master’s in the Valorization of Film Heritage at Paris 8 university, she entered the FEMIS film school’s directing department, where she made her first films. Selected at the Cannes Film Festival Cinéfondation in 2023, her latest short film, La voix des autres / The Voice of Others, won the L’Oréal Lights on Women Award.
On the Surface by Fan Sissoko
animation - 4min - 2021
Synopsis :
A young Black women goes swimming in the Iceland Sea and meditates on raising a child in a country where she remains a foreigner. As she enters the icy waters, she relives periods of her traumatic pregnancy and postnatal depression before her swimming becomes more fluid. Surrounded by nature where she faces her fears, she can now embark on a process of healing her wounds.
Film career :
Festival international du court-métrage de Clermont-Ferrand 2022 – Special Jury Mention; Tricky Women / Tricky Realities 2022; ‘On the Pulse’ Short Film Festival 2022; Movies that Matter Festival 2022; Scottish Mental Health Festival 2022 - Animation Award; Seattle International Film Festival 2022; Femfilm Festival 2022; FESCAAAL 2022; Festival Filministes 2022; Rex Animation Festival 2022; flatpackfestival 2022; Animation Nights New York 2022; Festival Fim Afrikin (FFA) 2022; Psarokokalo International Short Film Festival 2022; Animafest ZAGREB 2022; Détours en Cinecourt 2022; Leiden Shorts 2022; Nickel Independent Film Festival 2022; Figari International Film Festival 2022; Palm Springs International ShortFest 2022; Mostra de Cinemas Africanos 2022; Almagro International Film Festival 2022; dotdotdot 2022; Sao Paulo ISFF 2022; Mequinensa International Film Festival 2022 ; Elba Film Festival 2022 – Special Mention; Quibdo African Film Festival 2022; Afrika Film Festival Köln 2022; Chacun fait son court 2022; Helsinki International Film Festival 2022; Nordisk Panorama Film Festival 2022; Le Chouette Festival2022; Festival Court Derrière 2022 – Elie Award; Ajyal Film Festival 2022; AZYL Shorts 2022; Cinemafrica Film Festival Sweden 2022; iAfrica Film Festival 2022; B3 Biennale 2022; Saint Paul Trois Châteaux 2022; La Toile des Palmistes 2022; African Movie Academy Awards nominee 2022; Leeds International Film Festival 2022; Cinemazero 2022; Seville European Film Festival 2022; UK Film Festival 2022; Amarcort Film Festival 2022; Rencontres cinématographiques de Sya 2022; FESTIC 2022 – Best Animation Award; Manipulate Festival 2023; Black Film Festival Zurich 2023; FESPACO 2023; Afrika Filmfestival 2023; Filmfest Dresden 2023; Tres Court International Film Festival 2023; International Migration & Environmental Film Festival 2023; Festival Cinema Africano di Verona 2023.
Biography :
A designer by training, Fan Sissoko is a Franco-Malian artist and filmmaker based in Reykjavik. Her work explores the themes of migration, maternity, and neurodiversity. She works for the Migration Museum in London, The Museum of London, the Science Gallery in Dublin, and the National Trust. Her animation short film On the Surface won an Art With Impact grant and was selected and won awards in an array of international festivals. Her documentary We The People (2019), won a Film Futures Award at the Little Wing Film Festival 2020.
Air Bubble by Daouda Diakhate - fiction - 31 min - 2018
Synopsis :
After a long stay in psychiatric hospital, thirty-year-old Omar returns to the neighborhood where he lives with his father and little sister. All he is interested in is news of Ania, his ex-girlfriend.
Film career :
Festival Cinébanlieue 2018 - Grand Prix + Best Male Actor Award (Mahamadou Coulibaly); Poitiers Film Festival 2018; Festival International du Film d'Aubagne Mars 2019 – Best Original Music Award; Festival du Cinéma Européen de Lille 2019; Cleveland International Film Festival 2019; Festival de Cannes – Directors’ Fortnight, in the framework of a carte blanche; Festival Cinébanlieue/Talents en court 2019; Palm Springs International Film Festival - ShortFest 2019; Festival International de Contis 2019 – Middle Schoolers Award; Festival de Cleveland 2019; Festival de Rhode Island 2019; Fifib 2019 (out of competition); Rencontre cinématographiques de Brives 2019 (out of competition).
Biography :
Of Franco-Senegalese origin, Daouda Diakhaté grew up in various working-class neighborhoods in the Bordeaux suburbs. After leaving school at 16, he became involved in community organizing and animated visual media literacy and audiovisual awareness workshops and in the framework of the CNC (French National Cinema Centre) Passeur d’images program. In 2009, Daouda set up the Nos Rêves Production not-for-profit to introduce as many people as possible to the audiovisual and film professions. At the same time, he began working as an actor. In 2015, he made the self-produced documentary Les portes de l'égalité / The Gates of Equality, then in 2018 his short film, Bulles d’air. His following short film, Ayo Néné (2020) was pre-purchased by Canal +. Daouda is currently developing his first fiction feature, Mbott (‘toad’, in Wolof), winner of the Prix Sopadin Screenplay Label Découverte 2023.
Anansi by Aude N'guessan Forget - fiction - 20 min - 2022
Synopsis :
Eden, an Afro hairdresser, tries to simply get over her recurrent stomach pains. Not really heard by the doctors, she tries to find a remedy herself. But when the pain gets too great to bear, her daily life become impossible.
Film career :
Festival international du film d’Amiens 2022; Festival international du court-métrage de ClermontFerrand 2023 – Best Actress Award.
Biography :
Aude first trained in acting and took part in various projects as an actor. In 2017, she worked with women learning French through theatre at the Graine de Soleil theatre company in Paris and directed them on the Lavoir Moderne Parisien stage. At the same time, Aude began writing her own projects and followed a screenwriting course at the iCIFAP in 2019. She participated in the FEMIS film school Residency program to train as a director. She is currently developing her first fiction feature.
Quartiers * Lointains
France / Quartiers Lointains - Siniman Films 2014-2023 / Sudu Connexion 2018-2022
