The culture report of the day takes us to Cajarc in the south-west of France. For 24 years, this multicultural festival has put Africa in the spotlight. The village is transformed for a long weekend, with Chad and its artists as guest of honor this year.
Strolling through the streets of Cajarc is like touring Africa and its cultures. And meet a host of artists like the Mauritian director David Constantin. ” Platforms like Cajar or other African film festivals around the world are very important to us, because that’s how we get our films to circulate,” he says.
AT a few meters from the cinema, the Franco-Haitian poet Valérie Rinaldo settled on a table to sign her books. ” Haitians have a lot to do with emotions, with heartbreak. Often, we find in poetry enough to express all this “, she says. Further on, Timbou the Senegalese cook treats the public. ” I make fatayas, samosas, cod accras that come to you from Senegal”. This hammer comes from afar, it comes from the sculpture workshops of Zimbabwe. ” I am Rickson, I live in Zimbabwe. Me, I use the hammer and the point”.
Chad in the spotlight of literature in cinema
Chadian artists are the most numerous and not always where they are expected. The Franco-Chadian Jean-Philippe Djembe exhibits his paintings and talks about his art therapy association. ” Art therapy, it allows to work with the help of art to overcome the problems for people who have physical and psychic problems “, he says.
We also come across stars in Cajarc, such as actor Youssouf Djaoro, the favorite actor of director Mahamat Saleh Haroun. ” I have just finished a feature film which is in post-production in France with a Chadian director he says.
Chadian writers have also come to Cajarc, bearing the weight of a profession that leaders are often wary of. ” Those who emerge from within already have the courage to write, it is already an act of resistance by staying in Chad. Since the conditions are not favorable for writing », explains Sosthène Mbernodji president of the association of Chadian writers.
And then before his big concert, the star of the Chadian scene, Abdoulaye Nderguet gratifies us with a little singing lesson. ” Traditional sara song is close to Bantu cultures, while traditional Arabic song is close to Arab cultures. The sara song is pentatonic. In the north, it is more towards the minor scale than pentatonic “.
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