Speak, Memory

_19.00_speak, memory
Institut français

Amadou Hampâté Bâ: The Strange Destiny of Wangrin
Introduction: Hartmut Diekmann
Reader: Floriane Daniel
“In Africa, when an old man dies, a library burns”. Throughout the course of his long life, Amadou Hampâté Bâ (Mali 1900-1991) recounted histories and legends about the old men of his country. He was one of the few who knew how to put the fire out before it started. He teaches his hero Wangrin not to cut himself off too much from his African roots and not to succumb to the temptations of the European commercial world. A modern notion: to accept another culture, without abandoning one’s own.

_21.00_speak, memory
Institut français

Ousman Sembene: Ceddo (film projection)
Presented by: Hartmut Diekmann
Ousman Sembene (Senegal, 1923-2007) studied these themes: power, its growth, its limits. He pursued the power of religion and was in turn pursued by the political powers-that-be. In both areas his interest is clear: to record the object’s state prior to its deformation. This occurs most penetratingly in “Ceddo”, a hunt for West African culture prior to Islamic missionaries. A work of dangerously explosive nature, which president Senghor honoured by banning it.