Film Screenings / Programs / Series
DIASPORIC VOICES OF THE GRIOTS THEATER COMPANY
June 11 – June 15
June 11-15, 2025
The Griots Theater Company (Les Griots), founded in 1953, played a pivotal role in the development of African and Caribbean actors in France, and was among the most important postwar expressions of Black performing arts culture in Europe. According to Sylvie Chalaye, as outlined in her article in the February 2013 issue of Africulture, the creation of the troupe was largely driven by Robert Liensol, a Guadeloupean actor who initially came to Paris to study literature. Liensol, whose stage name was Omer Sollèn, attended the Sorbonne, where he met Toto Bissainthe, Sarah Maldoror, Ababacar Samb Makharam, and Timité Bassori – individuals who would later become renowned actors, actresses, and filmmakers. They joined forces to stage Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Huis Clos”, and their performance at the Concours National du Théâtre Universitaire in 1956 won them second prize. This success led to the formal creation of their company, and in 1957, Robert Liensol officially joined the troupe as its director.
The Griots Theater Company grew rapidly, attracting actors and actresses from across Africa, the African diaspora, and the French Afro-Caribbean community. Some notable figures associated with the troupe included Guadeloupean actor Théo Légitimus; Franck Valmont, a renowned Guadeloupean singer and musician, and co-creator of the soundtrack for Med Hondo’s WEST INDIES (one of several Hondo films that would feature Liensol); and Senegalese actors Douta Seck and Bachir Touré.
The goal of the film program, “Diasporic Voices of the Griots Theater Company”, is to highlight a group of Afro-Caribbean and African artists based in Paris, with Robert Liensol as a central figure, and to address the marginalization of African and Afro-Caribbean actors in the cinema and theater industry, where, as filmmaker Med Hondo put it, “Africans were largely absent from the cast, ignored, and excluded from the stage” (Med Hondo: Un cinéaste rebelle, Ibrahima Signaté, 1995).
The series also serves to highlight the socio-political interests reflected in the films in which these artists participated, in relation to their condition as actors and actresses from the diaspora. AMOK, by Moroccan filmmaker Souheil Ben Barka, explores the harrowing journey of a teacher in 1980s apartheid South Africa. THE OLD SORCERESS AND THE VALET, by French-Martinican filmmaker Julius-Amédée Laou, depicts an elderly couple from the French Caribbean who arrived in Paris in 1921, their daily lives marked by suppressed desires and heavy silences. VOODOO DANCE: A TRIBUTE TO THE PEOPLE OF HAITI, a documentary by Haitian filmmaker and artist Elsie Haas, explores the significant role of Voodoo in Haitian culture from various perspectives. VOODOO DANCE features the music of the great Haitian singer and actress Toto Bissainthe, and the screening will be preceded by a portrait of Bissainthe by Guadeloupean filmmaker Sarah Maldoror. Finally, THE GREEN PASTURES, by French radio and television director Jean-Christophe Averty, which reenacts the gospel and the Old Testament, extends the diasporic perspective to encompass the experience of African-American culture, as seen through the eyes of actors and actresses from the diaspora in France.
“Diasporic Voices of the Griots Theater Company” is guest-programmed by Annabelle Aventurin, who also wrote the introduction above. The series is presented with invaluable support from Villa Albertine.
Special thanks to Vincent Florant & Sandrine Neveux (Villa Albertine); Souheil Ben Barka; Dies Blau (INA); Annouchka de Andrade; Guillaume Launay (Talitha); and Roselly Torres & Shu Wang (Third World Newsreel).
Souheil Ben Barka
AMOK
Morocco, 1982, 109 min, 35mm-to-DCP. In French with English subtitles. With Robert Liensol, Douta Seck, Miriam Makeba, and Richard Harrison.
Mathieu Sempala (Liensol), a Black schoolteacher in a small South African village, receives a letter from a childhood friend informing him that his sister is very ill. This letter will be the starting point for a long and terrifying journey to Johannesburg, where his long-lost childhood friend will accompany him through the unfamiliar city. There Sempala will be reunited not only with his sister Josephine, who has turned to sex work to survive, but also with his brother Delius, who leads the dangerous life of an underground trade union leader, and with his son Gasha, whom he finds in prison. In Johannesburg, Sempala is confronted with a world he hasn’t previously known, a city marked by street protests, crime, hatred, and injustice, a world from which there is no return.
Wed, June 11 at 7:30 and Sat, June 14 at 5:15.
Jean-Christophe Averty
THE GREEN PASTURES / LES VERTS PÂTURAGES
France, 1964, 108 min, 35mm-to-DCP. In French with English subtitles. With Robert Liensol, Darling Légitimus, Théo Légitimus, Med Hondo, and Georges Hilarion.
Based on the play by American playwright Marc Connelly, THE GREEN PASTURES was made for French television by Jean-Christopher Averty, a longtime radio and television director whose television productions were often highly experimental. A typically stylized and visually daring piece, THE GREEN PASTURES presents a boldly modernized version of the Old Testament, here featuring an all-Black cast – including Les Griots luminaries and frequent filmic collaborators Robert Liensol, Théo Légitimus, Med Hondo, and Georges Hilarion – and set to a vibrant soundtrack of jazz tunes.
Thurs, June 12 at 7:30 and Sun, June 15 at 8:00.
Julius-Amédée Laou
THE OLD SORCERESS AND THE VALET / LA VIEILLE QUIMBOISEUSE ET LE MAJORDOME
1987, 88 min, 16mm-to-DCP. In French with English subtitles. With Robert Liensol and Jenny Alpha.
“Eugénie (Alpha) and Armand (Liensol), an elderly couple who were part of the wave of post-war immigration from Martinique, have been living in Paris since 1921. Eugénie, a former dancer with Josephine Baker’s Black Revue, has become a professional quimboiseuse (a practitioner of black magic) for a white clientele. Armand, previously a domestic servant, is retired. During one last walk through the city they face up to their past and their stifled dreams.” –RAVEN ROW
Fri, June 13 at 6:45 and Sat, June 14 at 8:00.
Elsie Haas
VOODOO DANCE: A TRIBUTE TO THE PEOPLE OF HAITI
Haïti, 1986, 52 min, 16mm-to-DCP. In French with English subtitles. Soundtrack by Toto Bissainthe.
This film documents the significant role of Voodoo in Haitian culture from the perspectives of Voodoo priests, government officials, historians and politicians. Attacked by Western clerics and declared a “superstition” by law in 1935, Voodoo has always been a source of empowerment for the average Haitian. And scholars argue that despite the exploitation, romanticization and vilification of voodoo, it remains an authentic and stabilizing cultural base of everyday Haitian society.
Preceded by:
Sarah Maldoror TOTO BISSAINTHE (France/Haïti, 1988, 4 min, 16mm-to-DCP)
Sarah Maldoror (SAMBIZANGA) began her artistic career at Les Griots, which she co-founded in the late 1950s with Haitian singer Toto Bissainthe, among others. Years later she documented one of Bissainthe’s performances, both on- and off-stage, to make this filmic tribute to her friend and creative partner.
Total running time: ca. 60 min.
Fri, June 13 at 9:00 and Sun, June 15 at 6:15.
