Anthony Sitruk.
January 20, 2003

Translated by Michael Dembrow

Born in Mali, Abderrahmane Sissako spent time in Nouhadhibou, the waystation city to which he returned to film Waiting for Happiness, before leaving to study cinema in Russia. Established today in France, he has produced several films in which he has come back to his life and his past, and to his continent of origin, Africa. After Life on Earth in 1998, he brought out his new film, Waiting for Happiness. He agreed to meet us to discuss this film.

It is very difficult to say exactly when this kind of desire first strikes. I believe that it was already inherent in the the desire that I’ve always had to tell my own story a bit in all my films, to use the form of autobiography. I had previously filmed in Russia, I had filmed in Mali, in the village where my father lived. I had to return to Nouhadhibou, the city which witnessed my departure from Africa to Russia. This desire has always existed in my head, and with time things formulated themselves more clearly. I returned to it because, as a person who lives the experience of exile, who has left, I believe that it was important for me to touch upon this personal experience to try to tell the story of this exile. Nouhadhibou is a veritable city of transit for people, foreigners who come from just about everywhere with the idea of staying a little while and then leaving. Nouhadhibou becomes a city from which many of them will in the end never leave. These aspects of the city interested me also because I had some wonderful encounters there, I mean human encounters. It was thus for me an appropriate place to create these portraits, portraits of these people in departure, who have to a certain extent already left, without having actually yet moved.

The film Bord de Mer (Seaside, directed by Julie Lopes-Curval, 2002), with which your film maintains a strange relationship, describes a city which encloses and constrains its inhabitants. Do you consider Nouhadhibou in a similar way?

Mine is a little different. Nouhadhibou is a city which for me hardly exists at all. I have nearly eliminated it. It is really much larger; we don’t really see it in the film. On top of that, the geographical location of the city, situated between the desert and this exit point which is the sea, results in my sense that the people are looser. They are free at any moment to leave. But in addition there is in effect a place in this peninsula where one can lose oneself. That’s perhaps a little strong. It’s like a place where one can sometimes rest.

The choice came about during the preparation that I did during the two months that preceded shooting, and during which I met people. Let’s say that I have also, in my own life, met people in this way, and have tried to incorporate them into my film, into my story, so that each one narrates a bit of his own life, his own biography. It’s a kind of casting process which is certainly not classic casting. One doesn’t really "choose" anyone, one doesn’t make that effort. We don’t search out a particular actor, it’s not professionalism that one wants, but simply a desire to share an adventure. Each time that I expressed this desire, I would explain to them that we were going to shoot a film and would show it in theaters.

Not always. They’re people who came for such and such reason. Some remained, others were effectively in transit. Like Nana, for example, a woman who left and who came back. We know that she will leave one day, that she’s not there for good. But for the moment she’s there; she has her little room. Abdallah, through whom the story is told, has already left in a sense, since he’s already not there, he was outside of town, outside of time. He is at the mercy of things, he cannot explain himself, because he’s really not there. I think that’s it as well, the exile’s journey-- that’s the real journey, the desire to leave by train, by plane, or by boat.

The script was in fact more of a treatment, like a 40-page-long synopsis, which tells the story that I myself wanted to tell, and that of the characters that I had met during my trips. I was talking in the end more about the characters and their lives. Then the remainder of the film developed every day, the dialogue also was done day by day. The night before or even in some cases the same day as the scene was shot. Also, via the actors who projected themselves into their roles. The child imposed himself because he wanted to play his role. I was thus also there to follow his desire. I always found him in front of the camera because he wanted to be filmed as much as possible. The old man also had a strong presence; he wanted to communicate, to give something. He was proud that I had selected him, that I had joined our destinies. I had given his life something marvelous, something fabulous. I appreciated him no matter how it turned out, and the role that I had given him, to be an electrician, to bring light to people’s homes, was for him something marvelous, and which he immediately grasped without there having to be a real discussion between us.

Always, in each one of them. The cinema, and not only that, from the moment that there is creation, but equally everything that one does. In journalism also, there is also an element of self-pursuit. This was true for each character that I chose and that I loved. I loved them equally because they had something that I don’t have, perhaps because I live in exile and live in Europe. Yet, when one lives in Europe, one becomes more and more fragile. My characters impress me with their force. But each character also has something that I have and allows me to reassure myself that I have it. In all my characters there is something—and that’s why I made this film.

http://www.filmdeculte.com/entretien/sissako1.php

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