INTERVIEW
Readers who have devoured Petit Pays , the autobiographical novel by rapper Gaël Faye, can discover its adaptation to the cinema since Friday. As in the book, the film directed by Éric Barbier, and of which Europe 1 is a partner, traces the events that upset Burundi in the 1990s - in particular the genocide of the Tutsis in the neighboring country, Rwanda - through the eyes of a child, Gabriel, son of a French entrepreneur and a mother of Rwandan origin. "This film is also a family story, it shows the little story in the big one", explains at the microphone of Patrick Cohen, in Europe Midi, Gaël Faye, who contributed to the writing of the scenario.
Because Petit Pays lingers on the bursting of the "family cocoon", shaken by political events. "Eric Barbier went even further than the novel, he manages to make us live inside the house", estimates the writer.
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Childhood recklessness in the face of the violence of history
The power of the film is therefore to manage to put the spectator at the height of a child. It is at his side that he sees surging, one after the other, the waves of violence which put an end to the carelessness of the first years. "The strength of childhood is not understanding things. Perhaps that is why the book had such an echo and that the film will be able, I hope, to reach the public", notes Gaël Faye.
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"A child takes information as it arrives, without analysis, he does not try to find answers as adults can do," continues Gaël Faye. "The spectator who does not know much about this story makes this journey with the child, discovers things at the same pace as him."