On Tuesday July 4th the screening of Safrana ou le droit a la parole by Sidney Sokhona took place at Arsenal Cinema.
In the mid-1970s, a political group made up of members of the West African diaspora in Paris decided to turn their back on factory work, to become apprentices of French farmers; later founding the cooperative Somankidi Coura in Mali. The Mauritanian director Sidney Sokhona based his feature Safrana ou le droit a la parole (1978) on them. It is a collective work in which the protagonists of the diaspora play themselves in central roles.
The film will be presented by Raphaël Grisey, visual artist and filmmaker and Bouba Touré, photographer, co-founder of the Somankidi Coura Cooperative and an actor in the film.
Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art
Potsdamer Straße 2
10785 Berlin