Lumières Françaises • Images of Africa

Quartiers Lointains • 4 Short Films

How can we best exist in societies that are both ours and yet other? How to best navigate institutions that are not always equipped to deal with the issues we face? How to find mystical or rational remedies to heal our wounds? These are questions that traverse the African diasporas. The transformations that exile, having to adapt to new cultures, sickness, or pain. Subjects to us that are often minimized and rarely represented on the screen. Captured in documentary, animation, and fiction short films, our seventh season shines a light on these physical and psychic metamorphosis. –Alice Diop, Quartiers Lointains Ambassador

ABOUT THE FILMS

Land of Shadows • directed by Fatima Kaci • documentary • 38 min • 2021

Lost in the middle of an industrial zone in the working-class suburbs of Paris is Bobigny’s Muslim cemetery, a plot dating back to the colonial era, mixes different worlds and temporalities. Fatima Kaci sets out to discover the rituals, voices, and presences of its visitors. In the woven-together voices and troughs of silence, glimpses of a shared Franco-Algerian memory comes to light.

On the Surface • directed by Fan Sissoko • animation • 4 min • 2021

A young Black woman goes swimming in the Iceland Sea and meditates on raising a child in a country where she remains a foreigner. As she enters the icy waters, she relives periods of her traumatic pregnancy and postnatal depression before her swimming becomes more fluid. Surrounded by nature where she faces her fears, she can now embark on a process of healing her wounds.

Bulles d'air • directed by Daouda Diakhaté • fiction • 31 min • 2018

After a long stay in a psychiatric hospital, thirty-year-old Omar returns to the neighborhood where he lives with his father and little sister. All he is interested in is news of Ania, his ex-girlfriend.

Anansi • directed by Aude N'Guessan Forget • fiction • 20 min • 2022

Eden, an Afro hairdresser, tries to simply get over her recurrent stomach pains. Not really heard by the doctors, she tries to find a remedy herself. But when the pain gets too great to bear, her daily life becomes impossible.

About Quartiers Lointains

From Pantin to New York, Lagos to Bejaïa, Ouagadougou to Chicago, Lyon to Mauritius, we seek out emerging film talents, whether based in Europe or Africa. For 7 years, the touring short film program Quartiers Lointains has highlighted their work, bridging distances and revealing commonalities, rather than differences.

This work is funded in part by MHC with money from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund that was created with the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.

These films are part of Young French Cinema, a program of Unifrance and Villa Albertine.