Press Book Bamako (ENG).Pdf

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ARCHIPEL 33, CHINGUITTY FILMS, MALI IMAGES ARTE France and LOUVERTURE FILMS present

bamako

2006 • 1.85 • 1H58 • DOLBY SRD

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SYNOPSIS

Melé is a bar singer, her husband Chaka is out of work and the couple is on the verge of breaking up… In the courtyard of the house they share with other families, a trial court has been set up. African civil society spokesmen have taken proceedings against the World Bank and the IMF whom they blame for Africa's woes… Amidst the pleas and the testimonies, life goes on in the courtyard. Chaka does not seem to be concerned by this novel Africa's desire to fight for its rights…

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INTERVIEW WITH ABDERRAHMANE SISSAKO

/ How did this project come into being ? one lives on a continent where film- making is difficult and uncommon, one First, this film is linked to my desire feels entitled to speak in the name of to film in my father's house, who has others: faced with the seriousness of passed away. the situation in Africa, I felt a kind of This house is located in Bamako, in the urgency to bring up the hypocrisy of the poorer neighbourhood of Hamdallaye. North towards the Southern countries. It's a plain house, made of earth. For years, a tap and a well have been stan- / Without a doubt, your film adopts ding side by side in the courtyard. Here, the least traditional narrative. How attention and it was absolutely message through a parable seemed the water is expensive, and to save money, did you develop this method ? necessary that the sophisticated state- right thing to do. I wanted the debate my father had a well dug. ments be put into perspective by compa- that is carried out by the main charac- This courtyard is where I grew up, At first, I wanted to limit the setting ring them with the lives that go on in the ters in the trial, to be regularly broken with my many brothers, sisters, cou- of the film to a trial without ever lea- courtyard. up by other realities which sometimes sins, aunts, uncles, close and distant ving it. Afterwards, I understood that I The people who gravitate around the take the form of parables. relatives. Never had we been less that could perhaps go further if I gave up courtroom believe in the trial but don't It was impossible for me to imagine twenty-five sleeping, eating, learning, the idea of a single space, one theatri- expect anything from the verdict. this trial anywhere but within a real living almost in turn. cal setting, and that I could introduce When talking about the West, in order living place. Today, most of us have left the house characters outside the trial. to encourage me, one of the witnesses to live elsewhere - and yet the house is said: "At least they'll know that we know". still always full... New cousins, close / What is striking, is precisely the life and distant relatives live there, go to that goes on outside the courtroom: / In Waiting for Happiness, you sho- school or quit to work on some odd women are dying fabric, a mother wed the impotence of Africa's public job or other. nurses her little daughter, a couple authorities and western countries' For me, this house is associated with breaks up, another gets married... anti-immigration policies. Here, you the memory of passionate discussions reach a new stage with a film in the with my father about Africa. I developed the secondary plots form of a parable. The other reason that urged me to because I wanted the lives of the people make this film has to do with my views living in the courtyard to echo or inter- I deeply believe that life and hope go on Africa - Africa, not as the continent fere with the speeches delivered at the beyond the notion of justice. Speaking that I call my own, but as a place of bar. The trial debates illustrate a kind of in a straightforward way is extremely injustice which directly affects me. When intelligence which monopolizes all of our difficult these days and conveying my

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/ You remind us that women play a Also, a large portion of the African central role in Africa and prevent the elite is a party to the West: they've continent from erupting into violence. never had the courage to act in favor of changing things because each person is Yes, they are the ones who prevent us only looking out selfishly for their own from being too pessimistic about the interests. future of the continent... When one So, I saw this western sequence as a sees their will to fight, their strength, it's metaphor of the World Bank's or the only normal to give them an essential IMF's mission - since these missions are part in the film, in the trial as well as in carried out jointly by the Europeans the life that goes on around the cour- and the Africans. tyard. / How did you go about the filmma- / How is the western spaghetti scene king ? related to the film ? / Is it possible to say that the trial has / How did you think up the "dialogues" For me, we had to film the trial as a cathartic quality to it ? of the main characters in the trial ? For me, it was a case of showing that one would a documentary: a scene The real question is this: no court of It's worth knowing that I called upon cow-boys aren't all white and that the couldn't be interrupted, a witness law exists to call into question the judges and professional lawyers and West isn't solely to blame for Africa's wouldn't have been asked to repeat a power of the strongest. It wasn't so also real witnesses. I worked a long woes. We too have a share of blame. sentence and we let the court presi- much a question of laying the blame on time with them. I decided what the fra- This is why the cow-boy who shoots the dent and the lawyers listen to the testi- who is guilty than denouncing the fact mework of the proceedings was going "extraneous" schoolteacher is African. monies and intervene as they saw fit. that the predicament of hundreds of to be like and then I let them put it to millions of people is the result of poli- life. When we were filming, I gave them cies that have been decided outside a lot of freedom when testifying, accu- their universe. sing or defending. You find this idea in a statement Some of them had been chosen given by Aminata Traoré, one of the among the victims of the famous witnesses, who refuses to accept that "structural adjustments" of the World poverty is the main feature of Africa: Bank and the IMF: these are the people no, she says, Africa is rather a victim of that we call the "outcasts", the laid off its wealth ! workers, like those former public ser- So, in this way, I wanted to offer ano- vants who found themselves out of ther image of my continent, one diffe- work because public services had been rent from war and famine. privatized and sold to western multina- This is where an artist's creativity tionals... These "witnesses" had the fee- comes in, not to change the world, but ling that a real trial was taking place to make the impossible realistic, like and so when they came to testify in these proceedings against international court they voiced their resentment. financial institutions. Here again, I didn't make anything up.

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CAST

Melé Aïssa MAÏGA Chaka Tiécoura TRAORÉ Saramba Hélène DIARRA Falaï Habib DEMBÉLÉ Chaka's sister Djénéba KONÉ Journalist Hamadoun KASSOGUÉ Court President Hamèye MAHALMADANE Victims' Attorneys Aïssata TALL SALL William BOURDON We used four video cameras and a real". I wanted to show his personal Defense Attorneys Roland RAPPAPORT sound recordist, deliberately letting point of view, without sound. These Mamadou KONATÉ them be visible on the screen. Because images represent for me the glance of Mamadou SAVADOGO I wanted everyone to get used to this those who don't have the means to Prosecutor Magma Gabriel KONATÉ technical device, just as one would in speak out. Witnesses any trial. • (in order of appearance) Zegué BAMBA On the other hand, for the scenes Aminata TRAORÉ outside the trial, we chose a fictional Madou KEITA scenario, with shooting script, reverse- Georges KEITA angle shots, master shots... and we Assa BADIALLO SOUKO shot on 16 mm. Samba DIAKITÉ This is how it turned out that toge- ther, in the same film, we had profes- Special appearances sional actors and actual lawyers, in the roles of the cow-boys Danny GLOVER judges and witnesses, people from the Elia SULEIMAN neighbourhood, and members of my Dramane BASSARO family. Jean-Henri ROGER Zeka LAPLAINE / You also introduce a character who Ferdinand BATSIMBA carries a camera. The character of Falaï, the camera- man, makes videos both for weddings and for the crime squad. But he says he Copyright photos : prefers filming the dead, "they're more Emmanuel Daou B. p. 5/7/10 • Lydie Rappaport p. 10 • Gilles Viallard p. 8 © archipel 33

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oday's core missions of the In debt-ridden countries, the privati- Washington-based IMF and zation of State-owned firms which T World Bank, which were crea- managed natural resources, water, elec- ted in the wake of World War II, are to tricity, transport and telecommunica- regulate the international monetary tions has always been carried out in the system and lend money to developing interest of rich countries' multinatio- countries. nals. The contracts - signed against a background of corruption and political As many countries had difficulty pressure - have always benefited these repaying their debts, rich countries multinationals. imposed, in the early 80's, structural adjustment policies that set the rules At the same time, the populations of the game for millions of people. under structural adjustment have grown poorer and poorer, their life International financial institution expectancy has declined, their child officials were granted the power to mortality has risen and their literacy impose on the most debt-ridden coun- rate has dropped. tries' governments a policy supposed to balance their budgets. Most official reports indicate that the Very Indebted Poor Countries are Most Sub-Saharan African countries poorer today than they were twenty are under structural adjustment pro- years ago grammes these days. owever, if we take into account the These programmes based on neoli- total capital flow and wealth beral principles serve rich countries' H transfer, African countries have more vested interests - essentially those of than repaid their debts to rich coun- the United States and of Europe. tries. Many of them have had to relin- The reforms imposed on Southern quish everything they owned and can countries have always been the same no longer secure their future develop- while, paradoxically enough, they are ment. far from being implemented in Northern A long overdue debt relief seems countries: suppression of State subsidies now to be deceiving. (in agriculture, textiles…), dismantlement of public services and job cuts in the public sector (school teachers, doctors…). Abderrahmane Sissako

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CREW

Screenplay and Direction Abderrahmane SISSAKO 1st assistant director Philippe TOURRET Director of photography Jacques BESSE Camera operators (trial) Thomas NIKÉMA Makhète DIALLO Abdourahmane SOMÉ Sound engineer Dana FARZANEHPOUR Set decorator Mahamadou KOUYATÉ Costumes Maji-da ABDI Make-up artist Batoma KOUYATÉ Editor Nadia BEN RACHID Sound editor Christophe WINDING Sound mixer Bruno TARRIÈRE Line producer Mali Maji-da ABDI Production manager Thomas ALFANDARI Production manager Mali Moctar BÂ Location manager Dramane TRAORÉ Producers Denis FREYD Abderrahmane SISSAKO Executive producers Danny GLOVER Joslyn BARNES

ABDERRAHMANE SISSAKO Born in 1961 in Kiffa, Mauritania. After spending his childhood in Mali and returning briefly to Mauritania, he went to Russia to study Cinematography at the VGIK, the Moscow Federal Institute of Cinematography, from 1983 to 1989. 1991 THE GAME 1993 OCTOBER 1995 LE CHAMEAU ET LES BÂTONS FLOTTANTS 1996 ABRIYA 1997 ROSTOV-LUANDA 1998 LIFE ON EARTH 2002 WAITING FOR HAPPINESS (HEREMAKONO)

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CREW

ABDERRAHMANE SISSAKO Born in 1961 in Kiffa, Mauritania. After spending his childhood in Mali and returning briefly to Mauritania, he went to Russia to study Cinematography at the VGIK, the Moscow Federal Institute of Cinematography, from 1983 to 1989. 1991 THE GAME 1993 OCTOBER 1995 LE CHAMEAU ET LES BÂTONS FLOTTANTS 1996 SABRIYA 1997 ROSTOV-LUANDA 1998 LIFE ON EARTH 2002 WAITING FOR HAPPINESS (HEREMAKONO)

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