SOLEILS

Credits

Name: SOLEILS

Country: Frankreich; Burkina Faso

Year of publication: 2013

Format: Blu-ray

Color: color

Language : OF m. dt. UT

Duration: 95 Minuten

Direction: Kouyaté, Dani; Delahaye, Olivier

Camera: Colin, Dominique

Editing: Attab, Linda

Sound: Siribie, Lassina

Actor: Melo, Nina; Ngazolo, Binda

Abstract

A griot - as the keepers of history and stories in West Africa are referred to - is called upon to heal a young woman who has lost her memory. The old man takes her on an unusual journey through time and space, through historical epochs and various lands from South Africa and Mali over Berlin and Belgium to Burkina Faso. The two follow the threads of African history from the great Mali Empire in the 13th century through Mandela’s struggle against apartheid in South Africa. In Europe, they meet ostensibly “enlightened” thinkers such as Hegel and Voltaire, who denigrated Africa as the “continent without history”, without ever having been there. The central question of the film asks: why is it only now being realized “that Africa has something to say?”

Sotigui Kouyaté, Dani Kouyaté’s father who died in 2010, served as the inspiration for both the Burkinabé director and his French counterpart Delahaye. The elder Kouyaté was one of the best-known African actors and hailed from a family with a griot tradition. The protagonist is named after him, and the film was posthumously dedicated to him.

At the CinemAfrica Film Festival in Stockholm, the film was received with ovations and it was honoured with the Audience Award of Innsbruck at the 23rd International Film Festival Innsbruck.

  Trailer