Fanta Sylla
Contemporary political realities leaving our most vulnerable citizens in the dust inspires two writers recall the work of great filmmakers from Senegal and Japan.
Ladj Ly has always used his camera to make sense of the immediate and concrete reality he lived in by documenting and interrogating it tirelessly. As such, the director’s late blooming success since the film’s premiere at Cannes last May feels somehow like justice, the reward for a relentless endurance.
A known cinephile and still working film critic with an affinity for polemics (he has a monthly column in So Film), Serge Bozon has had a slow rise to the mainstream without cynical compromise. Whether one loves or hates his films, their existence signals a continuing diversity in French cinema.
Black Panther is an unsettling experience. A sexy and entertaining blockbuster, the third feature by Coogler following Creed and Fruitvale Station is also a sad and perverse object. Its provocative ambiguity reveals itself only gradually.
Philippe Faucon’s films, especially his more recent ones, which focus on the French-Arab experience, show an affection for domestic workers, their gestures and the spaces their bodies navigate.