Cinema
Safrana or Freedom of Speech
Safrana ou le Droit à la parole
Sidney Sokhona · 1978
Synopsis
Four African workers from Paris set off by coach for an agricultural training course in the Côte-d'Or. During the journey their memories return: the ordinary miseries of the immigrant, the mockery of the literacy classes, exploitation in all its forms, and the conviction that they have nothing to gain by blending into the Parisian proletariat. In the countryside, they work alongside small French farmers who are also struggling to survive; working the land brings them closer, and each learns from the other his ways of farming and raising livestock.
Context
The film draws on the experience of West African workers who, in the mid-seventies, left the factory to train with French farmers, then founded the cooperative of Somankidi Coura in Mali; several of them act in it, including the photographer Bouba Touré, one of its founders. Shot in colour and on thirty-five millimetre, whereas the author's first feature was in black and white, it was released in Paris in February 1978, at the La Clef cinema. Med Hondo and Carrie Sembène lend their voices to it. The Institut français has distributed a digital copy since 2016, and it was screened in London, Berlin and New York in 2016 and 2017.
Who it is for
A film of a little over an hour and a half, in French; it is best to know that its actors lived what they play.
Prizes and reception
Jacques Siclier, in Le Monde, judged it “quite remarkable” and regretted that it was destined for a limited distribution.
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