Born in Nouakchott (Mauritania), Rama Thiaw came to Senegal aged six and then moved to France because of political pressures. She wanted to be a poet but her mother refused. So she studied Economics, Sociology and Cinema and shot her first documentary in 2009, Boul Fallé. In 2016, she received the FIPRESCI Award and the Caligari Film Prize at the Berlinale for her second feature, The Revolution Won’t Be Televised. She talked to Screen Africa.
HOW LONG DID IT TAKE TO MAKE THIS MOVIE?
Rama Thiaw: Three years. I got the idea in 2005. In 2008, I told local rap artists Keur Gui that we should make a movie about them, but everyone was busy. In October 2010, I came back from my location scouting in Abidjan for Zion Music (her next documentary, about the political history of reggae music in Africa) and told them that we should shoot in February 2012 (during the Senegalese presidential elections). At the time, they were the only ones to criticise Abdoulaye Wade (former Senegal president) openly and I was sure they will do the same during the campaign. My second argument was that this delay would allow time to write the story and find money. So we shot in January, February and March 2012, then in June and July 2013, then, episodically, between September 2013 and February 2014. I’m used to shooting movies alone but for this one, I needed two cameras to construct shot/countershots because Thiat and Kilifeu didn’t have the same schedules.
WHAT RELATIONSHIP DO YOU HAVE WITH THE KEUR GUI?
RT: We are friends. The first time I met them, I was taking pictures of singers for a music festival in Dakar’s districts. The Keur Gui were thin, brawny and bare-chested. They were known for doing ‘bad boy’ postures. I told them they were ugly (she laughs). They answered they were the best: “We are truly politically committed. ”So we start talking about politics, especially with Thiat. It was a friend/artist relationship. My movie proposal was weird for them because they were not mainstream, they came from the underground scene and they were diabolised in Senegal: no one wanted to deal with them. Even though the national hip-hop scene recognised their career, they had no commercial success.
WHEN DID THE Y’EN A MARRE (WE ARE FED UP) MOVEMENT BECAME FAMOUS?
RT: We talked in October about the movie and then two months later, they launched Y’en A Marre. The Keur Gui was a collective of 20 people from Kaolack with Fadel Barro, an investigative journalist, Denise Sow and Aliou Sané. I moved for one year to Paris to find funding. Even if the Revolution started in 2011, I kept the idea of shooting in 2012. But when I came back to Senegal, I discovered that there were plenty of young TV journalists from US, Europe, Japan – many women – filming round-the-clock Thiat, Kilifeu and the other members. The Senegalese media was also there. Y’en A Marre (Fed Up) comprises a group of Senegalese rappers and journalists, created in January 2011, to protest ineffective government and register youth to vote and this group was a meeting point between the youth’s gloominess and the Keur Gui fans. The audience believed in this group because they had 17 years of activism in Senegal: they are true; we know them. So they joined the cause.
WHAT WAS THE IMPACT OF THIS UNEXPECTED FAME ON YOUR PROJECT?
RT: For me, it was a shock. It created difficulties during the shooting. I had difficulties with the other members of the group because they were familiar with being filmed by international journalists and I was only there to film the Keur Gui. Thiat and Kilifeu were the stars of the movement so there were conflicts. As they were a collective, decisions must be taken through consensus. They had never-ending debates to decide if I was allowed to shoot. I was the only one who came with authorisations and a script I showed everyone to confirm that I was not doing the same. You must understand that in Senegal, a Senegalese is technically illegitimate. No one saw my arrival as a good thing. I was considered less competent than the white journalists. People didn’t really know documentary. So it was extremely difficult. I had to deal alone with a young team, without budget and with technical problems on one side and I had to deal with my friends who became important figures historically and politically and on the other side. They also faced a few attempts on their lives and were completely paranoid.
BOUL FALLÉ IS A MOVIE ABOUT SENEGALESE TRADITIONAL WRESTLERS. THE REVOLUTION WON’T BE TELEVISED IS A MOVIE ABOUT POLITICAL FIGHTERS. WHAT IS YOUR INTEREST IN STRUGGLE?
RT: With my next project Zion Music, those three films will form a trilogy about fight and artistic activities. Through the artistic activities – and music that I adore – I trace the political history of people’s everyday struggle. In The Revolution, I wanted to show the backstage, their daily life. Because I’ve always thought that a revolution is not a key moment, when emerge the revolution, from a long, slow and daily process. To only reduce a revolution to a demonstration means reducing a revolution to a symptom. Those movies are a way to leave a trace of our political story for future generations, to talk about modern history. My main question is: what is commitment? We cannot only be committed on stage or in the media. It is through private life that we see if someone is truly committed. I’ve read Karl Marx. But when I learnt he quit his rich position to go on the workers ‘side and create his newspaper with Engels, I thought: “He is coherent, committed.” It is really important for me. There is an extension of what he is through his work. The engagement is not a story of being a left-wing activist, we are all engaged from the moment we believe in what we do. I think there was a conflation in the ’60s and ‘70s, when people believed committed meant left wing. No. There are right wing activists, including extreme right-wing committed persons.
LIKE YANICK LÉTOUNEAU’S DOCUMENTARY THE UNITED STATES OF AFRICA, YOUR MOVIE SHOWS HIP-HOP ARTISTS AS NEW CIVIL SOCIETY LEADERS.
RT: I think hip-hop artists became the new leaders of this youth but not only that. New movements like punk in the Middle East or in Cuba are doing the same. Hip-hop became the first music in the world for the youth. So it came back to its orthodoxy, committed hip-hop. The first hip-hop track, ‘Rappers’ Delight’ is well known. The first Jamaican reggae artists joined the electro music created by black people in Detroit, and launched the hip-hop movement. It was a meeting point between Jamaican MCs, talking on tracks and scratching and electro. They were doing big parties in the ghetto and this is how hip-hop was born. The second movement came through Afrika Bambaataa, Guru… It is a conscious hip-hop, related to the 1970’s Spoken Word movement, of which Gill-Scott Heron took part. Yes, through my movie, I wanted to show to young people how to make their own revolution: through music and artists who build a civil society and obtain a participative democracy.
What I also wanted to know was: would these artists remain artists or will they become politicians? Thiat says: “A hip-hop artist must remain a hip-hop artist!” Hip-hop is a wonderful tool but if the singer is not committed, he will definitely end up joining the other border. So hip-hop mobilises people but this is not enough. It depends on who is this mobilising person, and his engagement. This is a personality trait, a persuasiveness to resist to the exposure’s temptation.
YOU MENTIONED GILL SCOTT-HERON. WHY DID YOU CHOOSE HIS SONG AS YOUR MOVIE’S TITLE?
RT: Gill Scott Heron passed away in 2011 so I listened again to her song The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. The words touched me. Describing the New York of the 1970s, it remains me exactly what we were living in Dakar with the Keur Gui. Related to media, this song talked about what I wanted to do as a filmmaker. To deconstruct an image of the African black man. A part of the song uses cinema lexical vocabulary to criticise American medias of that time. Many journalists made a documentary about the Y’en A Marre movement because, in one way, this Revolution was broadcast. I also wanted to talk about Revolution because people use to mix ‘Revolution’ and ‘bloody Revolution’. Even if there were 100 dead people during the Senegalese Revolution – that’s too much – this was a pacific revolution. The various media have done huge harm in relation to this. Revolution means changing a system, a system and setting up something else. We have now in Senegal a strong civil society and we opened a new era for participative democracy. The civil society makes a link to the politics: there is a transmission from the ground to the top.
WHAT KIND OF RECEPTION DO YOU EXPECT FOR THE MOVIE IN AFRICA?
RT: I cross my fingers to find distributors worldwide. We are negotiating with a sale agent. A few film festivals are planned. I hope to make my Senegalese premiere in May. And I hope to be selected at Encounters and Durban International Film Festival because DIFF supported a lot the movie: I was a Talent Campus alumnus, and then I came back as a Hot Docs alumnus. This is highly symbolic. I would also like to start shooting my next project Zion Music in South Africa.
Compiled and translated from French by Claire Diao
