Souleymane Cissé

Souleymane Cissé

Souleymane Cissé (born April 21, 1940 in Bamako ) is a Malian filmmaker .

biography

Cissé was interested in the cinema from childhood. From the age of seven he went to the cinema regularly and watched a wide variety of films.

Souleymane Cissé attended high school in Dakar and returned to Mali in 1960 when his country became independent.

After watching a documentary about Lumumba's arrest , he decided to become a filmmaker. He received a scholarship that enabled him to train first as a projectionist and then as a filmmaker in Moscow . In 1970 he was hired as a cameraman by the Ministry of Information on his return to Mali. He made documentaries and short films .

In 1972 he made his first medium-length film: Cinq jours d'une vie ( Five days in one life ), in which he told the story of a boy who gave up the Koran school and wandered aimlessly through the streets living on petty theft. Cinq jours d'une vie was awarded at the Carthage Festival. In 1974 Cissé made his first feature- length film in Bambara , Den muso ( The Girl ), in which he tells the story of a silent girl who is raped by an unemployed person. This film has been banned by Mali's Ministry of Culture. Cissé was arrested and jailed for accepting French help for the film.

In 1978 he shot Baara (German title: Der Lastträger ), which in 1979 received the FESPACO ( Festival Panafricain du Cinéma et de la Télévision de Ouagadougou ) award in Ouagadougou . Finyé followed in 1982 (German title: Die Zeit des Windes ). For the second time he received the FESPACO award. The film depicts the revolt of Mali's youth against the rulers.

Between 1984 and 1987 he made Yeelen ( Das Licht ), a visionary film about the difficult path of growing up. In 1987 he received the jury prize at the Cannes Festival for this . Cissé admitted that he had exposed himself so politically with his earlier films that he could not have made another openly political film in his home country.

In 1995 he made Waati ( Le temps ).

Souleymane Cissé is President of the Union des créateurs et entrepreneurs du cinéma et de l'audiovisuel de l'Afrique de l'ouest (UCECAO).

Filmography

• 1965: L'homme et ses idoles (short film)
• 1968: L'aspirant (short film)
• 1968: Source d'inspiration (short film)
• 1970: Dégal à Dialloubé
• 1971: Fête du Sanké
• 1972: Cinq jours d'une vie
• 1975: the muso
• 1978: The porter (Baara)
• 1978: Chanteurs traditionnels des Iles Seychelles
• 1982: The Time of the Wind (Finye)
• 1987: The Light (Yeelen)
• 1995: Waati (Waati)

Quote

• “Ma façon de vivre, c'est de croire en l'avenir; si j'étais fataliste, je ne serais pas cinéaste. Rien ne me poussait à faire du cinéma. C'est moi qui l'ai choisi. Je voulais voir les choses et les faire voir. Quand on a cette curiosité, on ne peut pas être fataliste. "

“My way of life is to believe in the future; if I were a fatalist , I wouldn't be a filmmaker. Nothing drove me to go to the cinema. I made up my mind. I wanted to see things and let others see them. If you have that kind of curiosity, you can't be a fatalist. "

Web links

Commons : Souleymane Cissé  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Souleymane Cissé in the Internet Movie Database (English)