I have seen fewer African films than you have. In the 1999 interview 'The Hyena's Last Laugh," Mambety said "the future belongs to images. He experimented with theater, but in 1968, he was asked to leave an avant-garde theater group. Cinema is magic in the service of dreams. Great intro by Scorsese and a 12 min interview with Abderrahmane Sissako on his love for the film. So I decided to study drama, but one day in the theater, I realized that I love pictures. That is the life of the World What do you mean by that? That was how I found myself in this thing called cinema. (2011). and how you'd like to be described. animal. Something went wrong. I had the freedom and confidence to marry his text with my film and make his story my own. story that had to be told? are making films like Hyenas in Africa? Economically, yes, but basically, no. INTERVIEWER: Do you think that African Diop Mambety, director of the award In this French New Wave-influenced fantasy-drama, two young lovers long to leave Dakar for the glamour and comforts of France, but their escape plan is beset by complications both concrete and mystical. person, his own soul, his present soul and tries to make do with it. Africa Film & TV Magazine. I must just wait for when the dream is This discussion is an excerpt of what appears in Transition 78, published in 1999, the year after Mambéty’s death at just 53. But you know Africans are also like the world bank. DJIBRIL: I can't say. Restored by the World Cinema Project and now available from The Criterion Collection, Djibril Diop Mambéty's cheeky critique of colonialism, Touki Bouki (Journey of … For me, part of that beauty is the fact that it is not very difficult to make a film in Africa. They are all disguised because no one wants to carry the individual responsibility for murder. I follow the same principle as a story. whose wings flow in the wind, and African Film makers can be birds for reinventing They are the time. “When a story ends—or ‘falls into the ocean,’ as we say—it creates dreams,” said the great Senegalese director Djibril Diop Mambéty in an interview after the completion of his second film, Hyenas, a wildly freeform adaptation of Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s The Visit. DJIBRIL: I Just asked them who they wanted to play Flâneurs, Fragmentation and the Flow of Life in Djibil Diop Mambéty’s Cinema of Wanderers". frightened and elephants follow the wind. winning Hyenas (click on picture for Real Video clip, "Ramatou's Arrival") which played She breaks them into smaller stones that can be used in construction. They know we are sick and poor and we But they can wait, wait for the last days when you say OK, I know With reference to "rich as World Bank" Director Mambety said in a 1993 interview that - "They tell the African people 'we know that you're poor but you have too many people working and you don't have enough money to pay them so you have to kill some of them. Let’s talk about making films in Africa. will be here. They're the same slaves to money and that's perhaps a heritage I am all for the quality of things—the total quality. have some dignity. Rawlins about his art, god, and the World Bank. or which character they wanted to be. In 68 Une interview avec LISSA BALERA, la comédienne d'une des meilleurs films du cinema africain, LA PETITE VENDEUSE DU SOLEIL (Djibril Diop Mambety) Mardi soir, lors de la projection de Hyènes à Colobane, en l'honneur du cinéaste Djibril Diop Mambéty disparu il y a une décennie, une spectatrice a suscité l'émotion : Lissa Balera. Film programmer and critic Ashley Clark includes a portion of an interview with Mambéty in which he says, “The hyena is an African animal … falsehood, a caricature of man. In La petite vendeuse de Soleil [The Little Girl Who Sold The Sun], all the protagonist wants is to sell her magazines, but money comes to subvert her plan. That broke the magic of cinema for me. Style is a word that I do not like. INTERVIEWER: So you think that the people of Africa have accepted this and that they But sound is not something foreign to adorn the film. is very difficult to do. My goal was to make a continental film, one that crosses boundaries. A film is a kind of meeting; there is giving and receiving. Marginalized people bring a community into contact with a wider world. It has energy and direction. ... An abstract, surreal lovers on the run road movie explodes and implodes under the force of Mambety's stylized editing, the timeline of events vague and open ended. DJIBRIL: My name is Djibril. What is said is stronger than what is written; the word addresses itself to the imagination, not the ear. Notable, but marginal: the fact that everyone confides in him sets him apart. It has to do with stimulation: from the images I do the music, from the music I do the sound. The point is that everyone in Colobane—everyone everywhere—lives within a system of power that embraces the West, Africa, and the Land of the Rising Sun. I am interested in marginalized people, because I believe that they do more for the evolution of a community than the conformists. Linguère Ramatou is also marginalized, because she is exactly the same person who crossed the Atlantic to go to Europe in Touki Bouki. Copyright © 2021 Metrograph. My task was to identify the enemy of humankind: money, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. DJIBRIL: Yes, it's mathematics. I think my target is clear. and the cinema will have it's first centenary in '95. kill enough people and we will give I prefer theatre to making films, but I lost my own theatre many years ago. As I said to the children before, in order to make a film, you must only close your eyes and see the images. In one word, “liberty” is what characterizes what I am doing. strong force. For each individual to have clean hands, everybody has to be dirty, to share in the same communal guilt. I do not want to use an actor again once we have worked together. After I unveiled this very pessimistic picture of human beings and society in their nakedness in Hyenas, I wanted to build up the image of the common people. They are nearer life than a professional. in Ukadike 6). Though she’s considered a first-time filmmaker by Cannes standards, Mati Diop is hardly a newcomer, having spent more than a decade working as an actress in films by Claire Denis (35 Shots of Rum), Antonio Campos (Simon Killer), and Matías Piñeiro (Hermia and Helena), and directing a small but vital collection of shorts. When I was young, I preferred acting to making pictures. It’s the way I dream. Europe is not important for me. INTERVIEWER: Just tell me your name and your occupation To make Hyenas even more continental, we borrowed elephants from the Masai of Kenya, hyenas from Uganda, and people from Senegal. The film depicts a human drama. I try to make the image illustrate the movement. INTERVIEWER: What about the films that you've seen here in Harare? Bank. You have to clean up your economy. There are others who can respond to this better than me, but I know that Africa is immensely rich in cinematic potential. a rush -not a joy for forgetting reality, but a joy for opening your sweet dream am just a history of a dream. Among the central and recur-ring images in his films are marginalized people, hyenas, and money. is like. That's why I like working with non-professionals. 189-203. A few quotes were also taken via Wikipedia. INTERVIEWER: Why did you make The professional actor does not exist. Is it different from When children ask me, “How does one make a film?” I always say that you have to have freedom to make a film, and to have freedom, you need confidence. It’s a fantastic boxset that includes five other gems of world cinema, caringly restored and preserved by The World Cinema Project. It arises from the necessities of discourse. She dared to lift up the moorings of the vessel and sail out. DJIBRIL: All my life is a dream. I am free with pictures. Museum of Modern Art The master Abel Ferrara–with whom we recently spoke in a wide-ranging interview–is given his largest-ever retrospective. 23, No. Shortly thereafter, he made his first film short called Badou Boy (1970), which dealt with the life of a young renegade. Professional actors break the magic of the dream and the magic of cinema. Interview with Djibril Relatively unknown compared to other foreign film giants is the work of Djibril Diop Mambety, 1945-1998, with only a few films to his credit, including Touki Bouki, Badou Boy, both from 1973. Think of Le Franc. He talks about his plans for a third part of the “Tales of Ordinary People” trilogy-which was never made. Every time I make a film I want to reinvent film. Is there any significance to this? The hyena comes out only at night; he is afraid of daylight, like the hero of Touki Bouki—he does not want to see daylight, he does not want to see himself by daylight, so he always travels at night. Earlier, I focused on the notion of freedom, which includes the freedom not to know. Oral tradition is a tradition of images. While Hyenas tells a human story to the whole world, I also wanted to pay homage to the beauty of Africa when I made the film. Sada Niang: Djibril Diop Mambety: un cinéaste à contre-courant, Paris: Editions L'Harmattan, 2002. He is able to follow a lion, a 2, 1999. with them in order to get that quality of performance. to reinvent the cinema. I began to make Hyenas when I realized I absolutely had to find one of the characters in Touki Bouki, which I had made 20 years before. using film in an innovative way, by exploiting the medium to its utmost. DJIBRIL: African film makers I am sure are able Three are professionals. A wealthy woman (Ami Diakhate) returns to her—and Mambéty’s—home village, and offers the inhabitants a vast sum in exchange for the murder … DJIBRIL: Theatre is theatre. My first name is Djibril. too. So what they have in common is cowardice. Clements, Clare (2011): "Meandering through Dakar. with it? When a story ends—or “falls into the ocean,” as we say—it creates dreams. He is a liar, the hyena. The only thing they have that is human is greed. Djibril ne comprenait pas que de si majestueuses créatures soient terrassées et égorgées. Tout cela se voit dans des scènes du film, la violence : quand Mory ne part pas, et tout ce sang qui est versé, c’est la vie de Djibril… » Andrea Paganini : Bonjour Wasis. this film, apart from the fact that it was a film is a specific sort of animal? You must have had to work substantially But the instant of murder required collective responsibility, and this required a mask. Cinema is a young invention we are now in the year 1993 you money. I rarely go to the cinema. Quality, quality. I tell them to close their eyes, to look at the stars, and look into their hearts, and then to open their eyes and see if the film they want to make is there, in front of their eyes. They are free to take their own path, to enter or to leave. INTERVIEWER: How long did it take you to get the quality of performance that you that is like a bird about Hyenas? Please take my dignity and kill me with your than going to see films. “We were very young,” he said, and not allowed out at night because the area was dangerous. Marginalized people interested Mambety because he believed that "they I like wind very much. So they were marginalized people, in that respect. "The Hyena's Last Laugh: A Conversation with Djibril Diop Mambety," interview with N. Frank Ukadike, in Transition, vol. Perhaps someday I will be able to explain to you why I rarely see films, even African ones. I think that the power of madness is one thing, and the madness of power is another thing. VIOLATION Video Interview… I don’t conduct myself with reference to other people. I was first introduced to Djibril Diop Mambéty's dazzling Touki Bouki (Journey of the Hyena) through the Criterion Collection's first box set from Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project.Watching Scorsese's introduction (once again included in this new standalone release), it's nearly impossible not to get caught up in his clear love and … from theatre to film to express your dreams? INTERVIEWER: So you're a maker of dreams. They tell the African people Djibril is Gabriel, like the angel. Africa can rediscover that moment of the invention of cinema. Do you think that A rich man comes along, and a magazine that should cost 5 francs is sold for 500 francs. I have said to the young filmmakers, “If you want to make a film, please think thoroughly about the content of the film you would make.” But I cannot compare their films to mine; I cannot talk about African cinema. Are you saying that it is inevitable African condition - a sacrifice that has to be made? So we leave each other in the fullness of our first meeting. So the people of Colobane become animals. They are the life In the third part, La tailleuse de pierre, a woman excavates pieces of basalt. It means clearly said. elephants away from Hyenas. When I was young, when I went to the movies, I was always angry when I saw an actor who had died in one film appearing in another film alive. Metrograph Djibril Diop Mambéty’s Touki Bouki follow-up Hyenas continues screening. That implies confidence in your ability to construct images from the bottom of your heart. DJIBRIL: You know I don't often go to the cinema. are killing their own people because of the World Bank's money? I loved pictures when I was a very young boy—but pictures didn’t mean cinema to me then. INTERVIEWER: So what is it about Hyenas that is reinventing the cinema? Hyenas are that time Hyenas like you and I will try to survive. here. Djibril Diop Mambety, director of the award winning Hyenas (click on picture for Real Video clip, "Ramatou's Arrival ") which played to packed audiences at the recent Southern African Film Festival, talks with Rachel Rawlins about his art, god, and the World Bank. The people of Colobane are dressed in rice bags. You have elephants at the end which seems From that time I haven't made many films. Birds know what god Hollywood could not have made this film, no matter how much money they spent. I don’t want to talk about Europe. Hyenas are not the time, elephants are the time and during She is a rich foreigner. You have elephants going away with the wind. The hyena is a permanent presence in humans, and that is why man will never be perfect. I want these children to understand that Africa is a land of images, not only because images of African masks revolutionized art throughout the world but as a result, simply and paradoxically, of oral tradition. accepted it with dignity. Regarding my young colleagues, I have not seen many of their films. DJIBRIL: Its earned millions many millions. It is very important to preserve the magic of cinema. And during the The hyena comes out only at night, he is afraid of daylight, like the hero of Touki bouki …” Mory, more than Ante, schemes and plots, constantly trying to find ways to find the funds to escape Dakar, a place they feel is too weighed … power of the story - and also the quality of the photography. Hyenas, please, Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project With a stunning mix of the surreal and the naturalistic, Djibril Diop Mambéty paints a vivid, fractured portrait of Senegal in the early 1970s. I do not have a grand explanation of power and madness. African continent has something in particular to offer ? INTERVIEWER: How many of the actors in that film were professional actors? Anta and Mory do not dream of building castles in Africa; they dream of finding some sort of Atlantis overseas. The cinema of Djibril Diop Mambéty is filled with dreamers. To do that, one must have a mad belief that everything is possible—you have to be mad to the point of being irresponsible. When artists converge on these images, there is no longer room for ethnic peculiarities; there is only room for talent. That is not an explanation or an ideology. In the case of Senegal’s Djibril Diop Mambéty, however, the 19-year rupture that separated his only two feature films, Touki Bouki (1973) and Hyenas (1992), remains a mystery. Please check your entries and try again. You must have the freedom and confidence to understand and critique what you see. Here are Mambety… The hero of the film is going crazy because of a lottery ticket, but he manages to hold on because he has the power of dreaming. There is a scene where this woman comes in and reads: she reads of the vanity of life, the vanity of vengeance; that is totally universal. DJIBRIL: You know the world bank is just a picture. All Rights Reserved. Why should I magnify the ordinary person after this debauch of defects? In an interview from 1995, the Senegalese filmmaker Djibril Diop Mambety remembered his first encounters with the movies. I had a vision that I already had encountered this character in a film. Myself, I am actor. INTERVIEWER: To me the hero gained dignity through his sacrifice. Africa is rich in cinema, in images. I understand that at the opening of the Festival you stood up and said that Do you want to change anything That was how I found myself in this thing called cinema. 2, pp. Imagination creates the image and the image creates cinema, so we are in direct lineage as cinema’s parents. Djibril Everything has to be perfect, but what does perfect mean? One part of Criterion's brand new World Cinema Project box set is one of African cinema's greatest achievements. You know why? The Hyena’s Last Laugh: A Conversation with, “I AM INTERESTED IN MARGINALIZED PEOPLE, BECAUSE I BELIEVE THAT THEY DO MORE FOR THE EVOLUTION OF A COMMUNITY THAN THE CONFORMISTS.”, “CINEMA WAS BORN IN AFRICA, BECAUSE THE IMAGE ITSELF WAS BORN IN AFRICA.”. He had no dignity The difference between professionals and non- professionals is a professional learns - birds are our dreams - and reinvent cinema. to packed audiences at the recent Southern African Film Festival, talks with Rachel Open your eyes, and the film is there. As I Anny Wynchank, Djibril Diop Mambety ou Le voyage du voyant, Éd. The hyena is an African animal—you know that. Interview: Teemour Mambéty Diop on “Hyenas” And His Father’s Legacy Paulette Gomis talks to Teemour Mambéty Diop, son of legendary "Hyenas" director Djibril, about living with a filmmaker father and embracing his legacy. If the mayor had dressed like a mayor, if the professor had dressed like a professor, then they would have felt individual responsibility. Djibril Diop Mambety Mati Diop The Criterion Collection Djibril Diop Mambéty Magaye Niang Myriam Niang Christoph Colomb Mustapha Ture Drama. from the west. it is about the World Bank. Hollywood? the seventh art. DJIBRIL: You know in the beginning I kill them.