Senegal’s Moussa Sène Absa on ‘Xalé’ and Why African Filmmaking Needs its Own Roar
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Loading... - Maimouna Faye
- 21 Feb 2023
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In a scene from Senegalese filmmaker Moussa Sène Absa’s trilogy-concluding “Xalé” – the opening film at Joburg Film Festival – a bunch of kids sit on a beach and watch a movie as a projector throws grainy images on a white canvass while the magic of filmmaking transports them to another world.
About the scene, the 65-year-old director, who says he still wants to be a rebel filmmaker, tells Variety from Dakar he included the scene as a homage to his own past and how film can help transform lives.
“I started seeing films like this in the open air, next to the beach. I shot ‘Xalé’ in the place I was born. This beach is my beach. It’s a bit of my own childhood. I felt that I had to include in ‘Xalé’ a memory of my own childhood – a moment where you can jump on a boat and look at a film from far away,” he says.
“It’s a souvenir about what I love the most,” says Absa, “because I used to say that cinema changed my life and saved my life. Film saved my life because I was a streetboy. It’s a miracle that I became a filmmaker. Film gave me the chance and the opportunities and saved me from a lot of things.”
Xalé marks Absa’s first film where the crew and cast are all from Senegal. “It’s the first time I’ve used an entirely local crew in terms of DOP, sound, art director, costume design, editing, music – everything has been done locally.”
“For a long time, we have been producing films using external crew from France, for example. All my films have been made with French or Canadian production crew. To now see these youngsters who could be my sons and daughters, just around me working on this film, was extremely exciting – to see that there’s a new generation, taking on the role of leading, as artistic crew, from Senegal. That’s been a very, very exciting moment.” Read More…
