STATEMENT

Through this film, I seek to rediscover and share the collective memory of a region made up of diverse peoples who were once united by a shared cultural heritage before history divided them along political borders. I hope to inspire pride in young people for their shared history and encourage them to use it to build a future free from conflict between communities.

Through encounters with griots – whether traditional or more modern, and sometimes musicians of global renown – I trace the evolution of the griot’s unifying role. I also examine West Africa as it confronts its colonial past and the contradictions of the present. Western colonization left open wounds, of which the borders and the economic presence of the former colonizer are the most visible elements today. Arab colonization, older and less well-known, is also felt through the spread of Islam and the Arabic language in West Africa, which sometimes competes with local traditions and religions.

The film becomes an epic – both intimate and historical – of the griots, evoked as a contemporary call for reconciliation and understanding, yet personified by the universal, initiatory quest of Sékou, a young man searching for his destiny and his father. This approach opens the door to a subtle and poetic portrait of shared memory and life in West Africa from the perspective of its storytellers.