Short film
Even the Wind...
Même le vent
Laurence Attali · 1999
Synopsis
A taxi driver in a boubou crosses Dakar at high speed, from the Médina to a road overlooking a mosque by the ocean. The car has no windscreen; a money box in the shape of a mosque and the image of a Muslim saint swing with the bends. Beside him, a young woman with bleached hair, a saxophonist, reads her newspaper without seeming to see anything, and her golden instrument rests on the back seat. He tries to attract her attention; the more risks he takes, the more impassive she remains.
Context
Eighteen minutes in Super 16, written and edited by a filmmaker who was moving here from documentary to fiction. Bettina Kee and Laye Diack play the two roles; Isseu Niang appears, the singer Cheikh Lô exchanges the ritual greetings in it, and the stylist Oumou Sy, who designed the costumes, crosses a scene dragging a heavy trunk. The cinematography is by Jacques Pamart, the sound by Myriam René, the music by Doudou Doukouré. Critics recognised in it the influence of Djibril Diop Mambéty, in its taste for play and parody. The film opens a triptych about love completed in 2003, each part of which runs to half an hour at most.
Who it is for
Under twenty minutes, in French and Wolof, the length of a single race. One enters it through light and rhythm rather than plot.
Prizes and reception
Beaumarchais screenwriting prize; shown at San Sebastián and in New York in 1999. The trilogy that it opens has entered the collections of the Museum of Modern Art.
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