#sotigui kouyate

[didierleclair]

LONDON RIVER

LONDON RIVER (2009)

London River (2009) met en scène deux grands acteurs. Le Burkinabé Sotigui Kouyaté et l'Anglaise Brenda Blethyn. Vous adorerez la façon subtile dont les acteurs jouent et la vérité profonde qui se dégage de l’histoire. 

A Londres, après l'attentat terroriste de 2005, deux parents recherchent leurs enfants qui ne les ont pas contactés. L'un est Africain (Ousmane), l'autre est Anglaise (Elisabeth). Ils ne se connaissent pas mais leurs chemins vont se croiser au gré de leurs enquêtes.

Ousmane n'est pas un bavard. De plus, il existe une barrière linguistique. Elisabeth parle français mais nous sommes davantage dans le langage émotionnel qu'autre chose. Il l’observe du haut de sa taille considérable, comme une girafe intuitive. Elisabeth, petite et ravagée par l'anxiété, aperçoit un intrus venu de loin et elle ne parvient pas à voir au-delà.

C’est une femme britannique polie dans d’autres circonstances, mais à cet instant, elle craint que sa fille ait disparu. Elisabeth a découvert des indices qui lui font penser au pire. Sa fille a peut-être été victime de l'explosion dont elle a entendu parler aux nouvelles. 

Par conséquent, l’homme noir devrait comprendre son manque de manières. Ousmane comprend très bien mais essaie de lui faire voir au-delà de la couleur de sa peau, au-delà de ses longues tresses. Il veut qu'elle voie le père inquiet qui cherche son fils partout. Ce fils vivait à Londres avec une fille blanche et il a vu leur photo ensemble. Était-ce la fille d'Elisabeth ?

Une fois la peur dissipée, Elisabeth réalise la vérité affligeante. Sa fille sortait avec un Africain et ils sont tous les deux victimes de l'attentat terroriste de Londres. 

Elle verra la douleur d’Ousmane en tant que père. Elle le laissera même dormir chez sa fille. Ils tentent de se réconforter sans mots, dans une étreinte poignante. Le silence dans l’appartement de sa fille est paralysant. C’est un silence plein de larmes, capable de remplir la London River.

Sotigui Kouyaté nous a quittés en 2010. Comme lui, ce film est inoubliable.

Didier Leclair, écrivain

[ariel-seagull-wings]

Jeffery Kissoon as Karna (with Miriam Goldschmith as Kunti and Sotigui Kouayte as Parashurama) in Peter Brook's The Mahabharata.

[blackfilm]

Sotigui Kouyate

[reseau-actu]

« Mabô Kouyaté vient de nous quitter ». C’est par ces mots que le maire des Lilas (Seine-Saint-Denis) a annoncé mercredi le décès à 29 ans, de ce jeune acteur, connu notamment pour son rôle dans « Moi César, 10 ans 1/2, 1m39 » (2003). Dans ce film réalisé par Richard Berri, il y interprétait Morgan, acolyte de Jules Sitruk. Ce dernier lui a rendu hommage sur Instagram jeudi.

Depuisce film, on avait pu voir jouer Mabô Kouyaté dans le téléfilm « Ecoute Nicolas » (2003), dans « Tour de France » avec Gérard Depardieu (2016) et plus récemment dans des épisodes de séries françaises comme « Munch » ou « Sections de recherches ».

Mabô Kouyaté avait également joué au théâtre par exemple dans « Les Liaisons dangereuses », mis en scène par John Malkovich entre 2011 et 2013.

Il avait aussi posé pour quelques campagnes de pub et récemment diffusait sur sa chaîne Youtube des clips de rap qu’il avait écrit.

VIDEO

Le jeune homme était le fils de l’acteur malien burkinabéSotigui Kouyaté, décédé en 2010 aux Lilas, et de la comédienne et costumière Esther Siraba Kouyaté-Marty, disparue début 2018.

Les causes du décès de Mabô Kouyaté ne sont pas encore connues.

Source: http://bit.ly/2I9lMzb

[now-watching]

“London River” (2011), dir. Rachid Bouchareb

[an-suz]

Lord, You created the world and there was no water. Then You created man. Still no water. The dry wind made him cry - I thirst! And then, You created woman. Unquenchable thirst. But why, then, did You create brothers? Must we live forever with this drought and thirst and, as brothers, condemned to hate one another? Esau, Esau, don't forget your duty to take revenge.

La Genèse (1999)

[didierleclair]

LONDON RIVER

LONDON RIVER, THE MOVIE (2009)

London River (2009) is displaying two great actors. Burkina Faso actor Sotigui Kouyaté and Englishwoman Brenda Blethyn. You will love the subtle way the actors play and the unshaken truth coming out of the story line. 

In London, after the terrorist attempt in 2005, two parents are looking for their children who did not get in touch. One is African (Ousmane), the other is English (Elisabeth). They don’t know each other but their paths will cross because of their inquiries.

Ousmane is no talker. Furthermore, there is a linguistic barrier. Elisabeth speaks French but we are more into emotional language than anything else. He stares from his considerable height, like an intuitive giraffe. Elisabeth, small and ravaged by anxiety, looks at him and sees an intruder who came from far away and she fails to see beyond. 

She is a polite British woman at other times but right now, she thinks her daughter has vanished. Elisabeth found out some clues that make her think of the worst. Her daughter may have been a victim of the explosion she heard about on the news. 

Therefore, this black man must understand her lack of manners. Ousmane understands very well but tries to make her see beyond the color of his skin, beyond his long dreadlocks. He wants her to see the worried father who looked for his son everywhere. This son lived in London with a white girl and he saw their picture together. Was it Elisabeth’s daughter?

Once the fear is gone, Elisabeth realizes the heartbreaking truth. Her daughter dated an African and they are both victims of the London terrorist attack. 

She will see Ousmane’s pain as a father, the man who lost his son. She even let him sleep over. They try to comfort each other with no words, in a poignant embrace. The silence in her daughter’s flat is tragic. It is a silence full of tears, enough to fill up the London River.

Sotigui Kouyaté left us in 2010. Like him, this movie is unforgettable.

Didier Leclair, writer

[blackfilm]

Little Senegal (Trailer) 

“There has been much dialogue on tracing African American roots back to West Africa. But in this melancholic and reflective film, the subject, in this case, a tour guide at Gora Island’s slave fort museum in Goree, Senegal, sets out to find his relatives’ ancestors; who were taken as slaves to South Carolina at the beginning of the 19th century.The 2001 drama Little Senegal, directed by Algerian filmmaker Rachid Bouchareb, is now streaming on Netflix. 

Kouyate plays Alloune, a man passionate about his African roots as part of the Jula people in Senegal. After some scrupulous research, Alloune travels to South Carolina, where he gets word from a Plantation family member about the whereabouts of his relative ancestor’s descendant, who has carried the Robinson surname. The search leads Alloune to the Little Senegal (Le Petit Senegal) section of Harlem, NY, where his first generation Senegalese nephew Hassan also lives along with his submissive wife in a small flat. 

He tracks the address of his distant cousin, a convenience store owner named Ida Robinson, played by Sharon Hope. To her chagrin, Ida agrees to hire a more-than-eager Alloune to work as a store guard; unbeknownst to his real purpose for being there, Ida makes clear to Alloune her distrust towards Africans. But soon the embittered Ida befriends Alloune, as he sets out to help her search for her rebellious teen granddaughter (Malaaika Lacario), who is pregnant and missing.

The film sets out to explore the culture clash and apparent animosities between African Americans and Africans. Alloune’s nephew Hassan (Karim Koussein Traore) also expresses his disdain towards the Black Americans, especially given the experience shown in the film with a customer at the car shop he no longer works for. Hassan, perplexed by Alloune’s search and need for connection to his American distant cousin, tells him, “We’re too black for them! They don’t like us. Hold out your hand to them and they’ll stab it. Kill you even. They like you, but prefer your money.”

The film however, shows the gender distinctions and patriarchal institution of African marriages, in this case between Hassan and his wife. She’s fed up of being treated as a servant and starts learning English; in one scene, his uncle Alloune stops the controlling Hassan from physically abusing his wife.

Another subplot in the film is Hassan’s North African roommate, Karim (Roschdy Zem), who is in the process of entering a marriage for residency papers with Amaralis (Adetora Makinde), an African American female cab dispatcher. That marriage agreement soon turns complicated, as they both begin mixing business with pleasure. Those sequences serve to further explore dynamics between Americans and Africans.

The heart of the story, and what you’ll enjoy the most, is the connection of the gentle Alloune and the embittered and jaded Ida, whose character softens as their relationship deepens and blossoms romantically. The film’s climax, the revelation of Ida’s ancestry, is moving and cathartic. Kouyate gives another poignant, subdued and subtle performance. I had to look up actress Sharon Hope, who plays Ida. I’m surprised this film is her only acting credit; her dynamic performance against Kouyate is compelling and their chemistry resonates.

There’s a rather sad, or more a feeling of melancholia, ending to this film. There’s a stigma of shame when it comes to the legacy of slavery for Black Americans. This film explores a rich history of proud ancestors through the eyes of a Senegalese man. He represents a West Africa wanting to embrace those who seemingly lost all traces to their roots. There’s something to ponder and reflect upon when it comes to the displacement felt by many African Americans in this country, and this film shows that for many African Americans the generational gap may not be that wide after all, perhaps even a little over 200 years!  Little Senegal manages to affectingly bridge a gap between Africans and African Americans, which in the end is perhaps much narrower than we have been presumed to believe.” via IndieWire

[isisgreen]

Portrait of Sotigui Kouyate (Malian actor) made from an entire room of objects by Bernard Pras

[posthorn]

An anamorphic portrait of actor Sotigui Kouyate consisting of a roomful of various objects, only viewable from one vantage point. By Bernard Pras; there is a video of the installation being constructed.

[from89]

Sotigui Kouyate (by Bernard Pras)

[now-watching]

NOW WATCHING: LONDON RIVER 

[vonkleist66]

Sotigui Kouyaté

[moviemakersunited]

"In a climate of suspicion, Elizabeth and Ousmane must fight their preconceptions as they stand a better chance of finding their children together than apart."

[paperarrow]

Sotigui Kouyate

[didierleclair]