Après l’Océan

Ohto and Shad have left Abidjan to seek their fortune in Europe. They both dream of returning home to the Ivory Coast triumphant benefactors and heroes.
Otho is deported and returning home empty handed he becomes a social outcast. Shad, following run-ins and fights in Northern cities goes home a hero, but not as clean as he would have liked.
Apres l’Ocean links Africa and Europe through two destinies: social climbing at any price, and the struggle against dishonour. 

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21st century Europe still does not invite blak actors onto its cinema screens. Yet many, both here and overseas, could meet the biggest challenges. As long as there are no roles there can be no actors.
This is also an injustice to film makers like myself who want to work with these actors, as their different “backgrounds”, their accents, body movements and expressions, add depth to the stories.

A kind of clear conscience apartheid also means that cinema about black people is only made by black people, as proof of authenticity. This results in less roles for these actors and in pigeonholing so called “African cinema” into a community zone from which it rarely leaves. Conversely, rare are the films made by Africans about Europeans, white people for example. Why are viewpoints not shared?
Static niches are subconsciously allocated, each in its box with its identity locked up. Must women film women? workers film workers? giraffes make  films about animals?

The world is hybrid but European cinema is not. Who said “Cinema is more than life”.

This comment was the subject of an article in the Nouvel Obs.

Après l’Océan révèle une autre figure de l’immigré, non pas celle d’un « déshérité » qui fuit sa condition, mais celle d’un acteur qui part à la conquête de son destin en se racontant à travers les métaphores du monde héroïque de Soundjata Keita à Bill Gates en passant par Martin Luther King. C’est une épopée qui relève de l’ambition, de l’utopie, des mythologies, de la foi.

Les jeunes Africains se racontent à travers des images et des symboles qui rejoignent ceux des mégapoles contemporaines, New York, Singapour, Rio ou Paris. Vêtements, musique, désir de puissance, langage crypté… Cependant les métaphores sociales utilisées pour se construire, les langages, l’éthique sous-jacente aux mots, varient d’une capitale à l’autre.

Après l’Océan fait suite à mon précédent long métrage, Bronx Barbès (2000), qui porte sur les gangs de rue en Côte d’Ivoire avec des dialogues en nouchi (français de rue d’Abidjan). Des ghettos, conçus comme un premier déplacement hors de la famille, à l’aventure européenne comme un achèvement dans les deux sens du terme, ces deux films racontent le voyage qu’il faut entreprendre pour rentrer chez soi la tête haute.

« Tu vois fiston, il faut aller en Italie parce que là-bas, il y a la mafia, le foot et le Vatican. Et ça fait un tout. » (le vieux père Pablo Escobar dans Bronx Barbès)

This film conjures another picture of the immigrant, not the « disinherited » fleeing his condition, but the player in life setting out to conquer his destiny, recounting himself through metaphors for the heroic, from Sundjata Keita to Martin Luther King or Bill Gates. An epic whose corollaries are ambition, utopia, mythologies, faith.

The young Africans express themselves through images and symbols that echo those of the large modern cities, New York, Singapore, Rio or Paris. Clothes, music, desire for power, ghetto language. But the social metaphors used to develop one’s self-identity, language, the underlying moral codes, differ from one capital to the next.

“Après l’Océan” follows on from “Bronx Barbès” (2000), my previous feature film. It is about the street gangs in the Ivory Coast, with dialogues in nouchi (street French from Abidjan). From the ghettos- conceived as an initial displacement from the family -, to the European adventure, these two films speak about the journey that must be undertaken in order to be able to go home with head held high.

You see my boy, you must go to Italy because they have the mafia, football and the Vatican. That’s all you need (Big Bro Pablo Escobar in Bronx Barbes).