INTERVIEW WITH APOLLINE TRAORE
Director, Under the Moonlight,
with Jean-Pierre Garcia, Director,
Apolline Traoré, can you tell us how the adventure of
Under the Moonlight was born, from its
production to its reception by the public in
I had already directed several works: a television series and a short film. The productions generated profits which we reinvested. We used that money to finance Under the Moonlight; we also benefited from a small grant from the [French government’s] Intergovernmental Agency for Francophony. I wrote the screenplay. Obviously the funds were too small to allow me to work in a medium other than digital video. It was my choice to work in video, to try to make a popular film and to show it in Burkina.
In terms of the production,
my company is associated with that of Idrissa Ouedraogo [the great director from
What percentage of the total budget came from the Intergovernmental Agency for Francophony?
25% came from the fund and 75% from our own money.
How much came from you and how much from Idrissa
Ouedraogo?
50/50. He is the producer of all my other films, so with respect to the profits from them, we had both put all available funds into the new production.
Did the shooting script exist already, or did you have to develop it especially
for this type of production?
It was a script that I developed, I didn’t write it. Once we decided to make this film, I began to write for about a month andd half, and then we went into production.
Could one label this film a social comedy with emotional content?
It’s not a comedy, it’s a social drama that tells a little about African history, an African social problem. But it’s a drama, not a comedy.
Is it simply, as you say, economic reasons that led you to shoot in this manner, to make this kind of film, or was there already a desire to make a film like this [i.e., in digital video format] from its inception, a film which would circulate more easily and also avoid steps like being blown up to 35mm film.
At that moment I wanted to shoot a feature film and knew that I didn’t want to wait two or three years to get European financing together. I knew that the only way to make this film would be on digital, because it was less expensive. I had another script ready to go, but I didn’t want to do that one in digital because it was much longer, more costly. I preferred to write another screenplay that would be easier to shoot digitally, under the conditions that we had, in the time period that we had.
Can you tell me specifically if the crew was Burkinabe
[i.e., people from
The crew was Burkinabe, except for the cinematographer, who is French
and who worked with me on all my other productions. It’s the same for the actors; they are Burkinabe, aside from a white actor, who is a Frenchman
living in
Before going into exhibition, can you tell us a little about the total budget, the sums that were spent on such a shoot?
All told, right around 15 million CFA francs, or around 23,000 euros [c. $30,000], not counting the part that would ultimately be needed for the transfer to 35mm film. But the film was first circulated on DVD, just two or three days after the end of editing. We didn’t wait for the transfer.
In which theaters did the film premiere?
The film was screened for
two or three weeks in
Was the film shown in other places?
In theaters that weren’t equipped for 35mm film, but only with video
projectors?
I believe that at first we
didn’t have any. We were forced to ask
for help from FESPACO [the biannual pan-African film festival in
Can you estimate the number of spectators that came to this first phase
of distribution via projected video? Not
necessarily for each theater, but in
In
* * *
Can you explain the fact that in Bobo Dioulasso there were nearly double the
number of spectators than in
I think that the Bobolais felt much closer to the film because it was shot in their region and in their language [Djula]. I believe that is the only reason. The public identifies with a film spoken in their language.
Thank you, Apolline. Perhaps one last question. . . . You just said that you had in hand a screenplay to be shot in a more classical manner with more substantial means. Do you have plans for a shoot like that in the near future? Or are you going to take up the torch again and make a film on DVD in a reasonable period of time?
Honestly, I’m not thinking of doing that again for now. I’ll perhaps do it eventually in the years to come, but in relation to my experience and my career, I’m not overly tempted to return to this type of commercial cinema. Not at this moment. Because these are “local” films. They do make money. But at the international level, in terms of quality and critical reception, they don’t reach the desired level of quality. Due to scarcity of means, we are obliged to shoot too rapidly. We make them for the Burkinabe public, whether in fact there are viewers or not.
But with respect to my
career, I’d like to make more classical films.
I’d like to participate in many more festivals. Even though Under the Moonlight was shot in two weeks (on a technical level I’m
not too pleased with it), it has all the same been invited to many
festivals. I’ve traveled a good deal
with this film, but in the future I’d like to have the patience to make a
film of better quality, to have more time at my disposal, and to truly return
to the world of cinema.
http://www.cinemasfrancophones.org/upload/integraliterencontreamiens.doc
--Translated by Michael Dembrow