Quartiers Lointains: Season 7
Theme: METAMORPHOSIS(ES)
How do we exist in societies that are both ours and foreign? How do we cope with institutions that aren’t always equipped to heal our wounds? How do we find mystical or rational remedies to soothe our pain? These questions resonate across African diasporas. Because the transformations endured during exile, adaptation to a new culture, illness, or suffering are often minimized and underrepresented on screen. Staged through documentary, animated, and fictional short films, these physical and psychological metamorphoses take center stage in the seventh season of Quartiers Lointains.
Our Godmother: Alice Diop
Screenwriter and director Alice Diop has been filming the unseen angles of French society for twenty years. She won the César for Best Short Film in 2017 for her film Vers la tendresse (#QL6). That same year, her feature-length documentary La Permanence received the French Competition Prize at the Cinéma du réel festival. Her documentary Nous was awarded the Best Documentary Film Prize and the Best Film Prize in the Encounters section at the Berlinale in 2021. Her feature film Saint Omer, representing France at the 2023 Oscars, won the Silver Lion and the Lion of the Future at the Venice Film Festival, as well as the Louis Delluc Prize and the Jean Vigo Prize in 2022.
The Films of Season 7
Land of Shadows de Fatima Kaci
Documentary - 2021 - 38min
Synopsis :
Relegated to the middle of an industrial zone in the suburbs, the Muslim cemetery of Bobigny, an islet dating back to the colonial era, blends different worlds and temporalities. Fatima Kaci met with the rituals, voices, and presences of its visitors. From the weave of their words and the hollows of silence, fragments of a shared memory between France and Algeria emerge.
Carrière du film :
Unreleased
On the Surface de Fan Sissoko
Animation - 2021 - 4min
Synopsis :
A young Black woman goes swimming in the Icelandic sea and reflects on raising a child in a country where she remains a stranger. Entering the icy water, she relives her traumatic pregnancy and postnatal depression. Then, her swimming becomes smoother. Surrounded by nature, where she confronts her fears, she can now begin to heal her wounds.
Carrière du film :
Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2022 - Special Jury Mention
Tricky Women / Tricky Realities 2022
‘On the Pulse’ Short Film Festival 2022
Movies that Matter Festival 2022
Scottish Mental Health Festival 2022 - Animation Award
Seattle International Film Festival 2022
Femfilm Festival 2022
FESCAAAL 2022
Festival Filministes 2022
Rex Animation Festival 2022
flatpackfestival 2022
Animation Nights New York 2022
Festival Fim Afrikin (FFA) 2022
Psarokokalo International Short Film Festival 2022
Animafest ZAGREB 2022
Détours en Cinecourt 2022
Leiden Shorts 2022
Nickel Independent Film Festival 2022
Figari International Film Festival 2022
Palm Springs International ShortFest 2022
Mostra de Cinemas Africanos 2022
Almagro International Film Festival 2022
dotdotdot 2022
Sao Paulo ISFF 2022
Mequinensa International Film Festival 2022 - Elba Film Festival 2022 - Honorable Mention
Quibdo African Film Festival 2022
Afrika Film Festival Köln 2022
Chacun fait son court 2022
Helsinki International Film Festival 2022
Nordisk Panorama Film Festival 2022
Le Chouette Festival 2022
Festival Court Derrière 2022 - Elie Award
Ajyal Film Festival 2022; AZYL Shorts 2022
Cinemafrica Film Festival Sweden 2022
iAfrica Film Festival 2022
B3 Biennale 2022; Saint Paul Trois Châteaux 2022
La Toile des Palmistes 2022
African Movie Academy Awards nominee 2022
Leeds International Film Festival 2022
Cinemazero 2022
Seville European Film Festival 2022
UK Film Festival 2022
Amarcort Film Festival 2022
Rencontres cinématographiques de Sya 2022
FESTIC 2022 - Best Animated Film
Manipulate Festival 2023
Black Film Festival Zurich 2023
FESPACO 2023; Afrika Filmfestival 2023
Filmfest Dresden 2023
Tres Court International Film Festival 2023
International Migration & Environmental Film Festival 2023
Verona African Cinema Festival 2023
Air Bubbles de Daouda Diakhate
Fiction - 2018 - 31min
Synopsis :
Omar, thirty years old, is released from a long stay in a psychiatric hospital. He returns to the neighborhood where he lives with his father and younger sister. The only thing that interests him is getting news of Ania, his ex-girlfriend.
Carrière du film :
Cinébanlieue Festival 2018 - Grand Prize + Best Male Performance Award for Mahamadou Coulibaly
Poitiers Film Festival 2018
International Film Festival of Aubagne March 2019 - Grand Prize for Best Original Music
European Cinema Festival of Lille 2019
Cleveland International Film Festival 2019
Cannes Film Festival - Directors’ Fortnight - as part of the carte blanche
Cinébanlieue/Talents en court Festival 2019
Palm Springs International Film Festival - ShortFest 2019
Contis International Festival 2019 - Middle School Students’ Award
Cleveland Festival 2019; Rhode Island Festival 2019
Fifib 2019 (out of competition)
Brive Cinematic Encounters 2019 (out of competition)
Anansi de Aude N'guessan Forget
Fiction - 2022 - 20min
Synopsis :
Eden, an Afro hairdresser, tries to overcome her recurring stomach pains by pushing through. Unheard by the medical establishment, she attempts to treat herself. When her pain catches up with her, her daily life becomes unbearable.
Carrière du film :
Amiens International Film Festival 2022
Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2023 - Best Female Performance Award
THE FILMMAKERS OF SEASON 7
Fatima Kaci
Fatima Kaci was born in 1992 in France to Algerian parents. She grew up in Saint-Denis in the Paris suburbs. Holding a master’s degree in the Valorization of Cinematic Heritage from the University of Paris 8, she later joined the directing department of La Fémis, where she made her first films. Her latest short film, La voix des autres, selected for the Cinéfondation at the Cannes Film Festival 2023, won the Lights on Women Award from L'Oréal.
Photo credit: ©La Fémis
Fan Sissoko
Fan Sissoko is a French-Malian artist and filmmaker based in Reykjavik, trained in design for social change. Her work explores themes of migration, motherhood, adversity, and neurodiversity. She is currently developing her next animated short film project.
Photo credit: ©Clermont Ferrand FF
Daouda Diakhate
Of Franco-Senegalese origin, Daouda Diakhaté grew up in several working-class neighborhoods in the Bordeaux suburbs. Dropping out of school at 16, he became involved in community animation in his neighborhood and led workshops on image education and audiovisual awareness as part of the CNC’s “Passeur d’images” program. In 2009, Daouda founded an association, “Nos Rêves Production,” to introduce as many people as possible to audiovisual and cinematic professions. Alongside this, he embarked on a career as a director and actor. In 2015, he directed the self-produced documentary Les portes de l'égalité, followed in 2018 by his first produced short film, Air Bubbles. His next short film, Ayo Néné (2020), was pre-purchased by Canal +. Daouda is currently developing his first fiction feature film, Mbott (toad, in Wolof), which won the Discovery Label at the 2023 Sopadin Screenplay Awards.
Photo credit: ©Katia Mader
Aude N'guessan Forget
Aude first trained as an actress and participated in various projects in that capacity. She notably acted alongside Agnès Soral and Vladimir Yordanoff in “Ten Minutes from Nowhere,” Alice Belaïdi in “Working Girl,” and Clotilde Courau in “Mothers’ Day.” In 2017, she supported women learning French through theater with the Graine de Soleil company and directed them at the Lavoir Moderne Parisien.
In parallel, driven by a desire to write her own projects, Aude attended a screenwriting workshop at CIFAP in 2019. Shortly after, she signed her first series, “Niabla,” as a screenwriter for Canal + Afrique, co-written with Ivorian author Armand Gauz and Anthony Martin.
Aude joined La Fémis’s Residency program in 2021 to train in directing.
Photo credit: ©Lisa Lesourd