The Berlin Film Festival is screening this Saturday in the Panorama category the film In the film cemetery, the first feature film by Thierno Souleymane Diallo. In this docu-fiction, the young Guinean filmmaker puts himself on stage, while he is looking for the very first film shot by an African from the French-speaking area.
He is still only a simple film student, when Thierno Souleymane Diallo learns that it was a fellow Guinean named Mamadou Touré, who shot the very first film in the history of African cinema. A work that has everything of a myth because if everyone in the cinema has heard of it, no one has ever seen it. To the point of even doubting its existence.
Entitled Mouramani, the film is a legend among directors on the continent. And for good reason, they have never seen it, as explained by Thierno Souleymane Diallo, joined by Sidy Yansane of the Africa editorial staff. ” I said to myself: if he has a film in 1953 and his film has disappeared, what will become of my own films? This is the starting point of his film. ” I wanted to make a film about my desires for cinema. I had the idea of looking for this film: I’m making a film in which I go in search of a lost film…”
In his movie In the film cemetery, the young filmmaker embodies the character of Mamlo in search of his own missing film. A quest that will take him to France, where Thierno Souleymane Diallo collects enough information proving that the work did exist, even if it remains untraceable.
“ It was actually shot in 1953 by a young Guinean film student, Mamadou Touré. He made this film with the desire to make a black cinema, interpreted by blacks...”
With this first feature film, the Guinean director hopes to win the prize for best documentary at the Berlinale.