Daughter of colonial settlers, I’m part of the fifth generation born on Algerian soil. My arrival in France dates back to July 1962, at the time of the French-Algerian War.
Exile, uprooting, a visceral rejection of violence, anaesthesised memory, silence, … a constant questioning follows me.
Starting with « The Faces of Jeanne d’Arc » (SFB 2001 – DLR – DRS – SRG - Radio Polski – Prix Marulic, “Best Radio Documentary 2002), Joan, heroic character from my childhood, a girl from Lorraine (like me later on), boiling in her suit of armour under the Algerian sun, later co-opted by nearly every form of nationalism on the planet.
Followed by «Voice of a Woman: Jacky Micaeli» (SFB 2002 – Radio Polski – Radio Saarbrucken – SWFR) portrait of an engaged Corsican singer, as well as an encounter between the rooted (Jacky Micaeli) and the uprooted (Nicole Marmet).
With the adaptation for France Culture in 2002 of « L’Étranger » by Albert Camus, I took a breathless plunge into a familiar universe.
And, with « The Unwed Mothers of Casablanca » (SFB 2003 –DRS – NDR – WDR– Shortlisted for the Medienpreis -- media prize dedicated to childrens’ rights -- 2005.), I returned to the Maghreb after a lapse of 20 years, for an essential encounter with a group of women – young girls ridiculed and excluded for having children outside wedlock.
“Music in Exile: Once Upon a Time there was a Radio Orchestra in Kabul” and “Mahwash: Like the Moon» ( Radio Berlin Brandenburg 2005) brought me to the vertiginous brink of exile through my encounter with, and through intimate portraits of, 4 exiled Afghan musicians and a singer.
Listening to others means learning to speak.
To listen and speak is to exchange.
To exchange honourably and respectfully you need time.
Time for language to find its form, colour, place.
Time for the ear to attune to language in order to recognise it, retain it and finally transmit it.
Sensitive to the art of the African storytellers (griots and griottes), whom I had the good fortune to see and hear in Mali, I try to orient my documentary work in this storytelling spirit.
The “griot” is a privileged messenger, a collector of talents, of knowledge, of words, of memories.
He or she is a messenger who needs to have the talent of a poet, sorcerer and inventor.
I write and work in French, but, strange as it may seem, my radio documentaries are only broadcast in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Poland.
Because of the closed structure of Radio France, feature makers are only permitted to propose an idea and then put it into someone else’s hands; we don’t even have the right to record our own material because it would lack the “unique sound of France Culture”.
However, in January 2006, I will finally have the chance to produce and broadcast in French ... in Belgium! RTBF has invited me to Brussels to direct the French language version of « The Unwed Mothers of Casablanca ».
For my features, I find it hard to work in a team; for the encounter and the « collecting » I need intimacy.
To achieve intimacy time is essential. For example, for « The Unwed Mothers of Casablanca », I stayed in Morocco for two months.
I have over 75 recorded hours of of intimate conversations.
In progress is another return to my origins.
More than ever the time factor is vital, for a work concerning the memories of people at the twilight of their lives, between the ages of 75 and 93: “ And the storks remain forever”.
Who are these “pieds-noirs” (Maghrebins of French origin) who remained in Morocco after independence?
Storks in Kenitra, Morocco June 2005
These last three years, in the course of many working journeys to Morocco, I rediscovered a part of myself.
Above all, I met many people, many characters, elderly French colonials who have chosen to remain in their country of birth.
They’ve invited me into their stories and allowed me to recognise myself there.
With them I can perhaps understand my fascination with storks, discover why I was so moved to see them “in colonies” in the streets of Kenitra.
To my immense surprise, I learned that they have become sedentary storks.
Once upon a time there were storks who chose their country of exile...
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