Aimé Césaire, Une voix pour l'histoire

Aimé Césaire, Une voix pour l'histoire 1995

10.00

A three-part study that introduces audiences to the celebrated Martinican author Aimé Césaire, who coined the term "négritude" and launched the movement called the "Great Black Cry".

1995

Batouk

Batouk 1968

10.00

This uneven and uninspired documentary of Africa is a collection from various stock footage. Female dancers in mod clothes dance on the Eiffel Tower in comparison to the primitive dances of native Africans. A lone runner trains for a marathon, and a few animals are shown in their natural habitat. Commentary and modern jazz and pop music help to make this seem much longer than 66 minutes.

1968

And the Dogs Were Silent

And the Dogs Were Silent 1976

6.50

For 'Et les chiens se taisaient' Maldoror adapted a piece of theatre by the poet and politician Aimé Césaire (1913–2008), about a rebel who becomes profoundly aware of his otherness when condemned to death. His existential dialogue with his mother reverberates around the African sculptures on display at the Musée de l'Homme, a Parisian museum full of colonial plunder whose director was the Surrealist anthropologist Michel Leiris.

1976

Aimé Césaire, Un homme une terre

Aimé Césaire, Un homme une terre 1976

10.00

Alternating interview segments, shots of Martinique landscapes and scenes from Aimé Césaire's play La Tragédie du roi Christophe (1963), Sarah Maldoror portrays her friend as a politician, a poet, and a founder of the Négritude movement.

1976

Eia pour Césaire

Eia pour Césaire 2009

10.00

Shortly after his death in 2008, Maldoror made this film about her longtime friend and collaborator, the Négritude poet Aimé Césaire. In this film, she retraces the steps of Césaire’s travels across the globe — particularly back to his hometown in Martinique, where Maldoror interviews his relatives about his life — and her working relationship with Césaire, including fragments of her previous films about him, Un homme, une terre (1976) and Le masque des mots (1987).

2009