Let’s talk, Grandmother – restored version
Djibril Diop Mambéty – Sénégal
Fifteen years after « Touki Bouki », Djibril Diop Mambéty once again gets behind the camera to film two things close to his heart: cinema and children. The cinema, which here he pays a tender tribute to, is that of his young friend Idrissa Ouedraogo, who is in the process of shooting Yaaba, his second feature-length film; the cinema is also Burkina Faso, the only country in West Africa to have – thanks to Thomas Sankara – developed a real cinematographic « industry » with production, funding, directing and distribution structures in place.
By reflecting the shoot of this film in Burkina Faso about a grandmother and two children, Djibril Diop Mambéty dramatizes contemporary Africa’s rapport with childhood – his second passion. In fact, the filmmaker set up the Yaadikone foundation for childhood and nature in Dakar, named after a Senegalese « Robin Hood » that made life hard for the Colonisers and fought against all their injustices. The foundation aims to fight for children’s rights and enabling them – through specific initiatives – to escape abandonment and oblivion.
Unequivocally, « Let’s talk, Grandmother » is closer to a film-poem than a documentary, a manifesto film about cinema, children and Africa.
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