Au cimetière de la pellicule

A road-movie through the history of African cinema. Thierno Souleymane goes in search of the first African film from Guinea directed by Mamadou Toure, Mouramani, first film made by a Black frenchspeaking African director, Mamadou Touré, in Guinea in 1953. A pretext to trace the difficult history of Guinean cinema, which was a centre of African film production at the time of independence. In 1970, following a coup d’état, the filmmakers were arrested and the technicians ordered to burn all the archives… the cinemas begin to close one after the other.

Souleymane Diallo will go all the way to France, to the archives of the CNC, a rare place that holds an immense quantity of African films.
This fascinating quest brings us face-to-face with many of the players in the film industry and raises the question of ownership of African countries' film heritage. Thierno Souleymane uses his camera to confront History and cinema, the kind we watch and the kind we make.

On Sunday 21 January, the screening is in partnership with #cine - cinema by and for young people.

Round table in the presence of Thierno Souleymane Diallo (director of Au cimetière de la pellicule), Sosthène Meboma (researcher specialising in history teaching and African historiography) and Achilleas Papakonstantis (head of the section Valorisation of the collections at the Cinémathèque suisse), moderated by Michel Amarger (journalist and film critic) on Monday 22 January at 18:30 at Fonction:Cinéma.

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Reservoir Docs / France / Irène Cadavid / irene@urbangroup.biz