Cinema: the "Carrosse d'or" will be awarded in Cannes to Malian Souleymane Cissé

Malian filmmaker Souleymane Cissé will be rewarded at the next Cannes Film Festival with a "golden carriage" for his entire career by the Society of Film Directors. Cannes Film Festival 2015

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The SRF, the Society of Film Directors, has awarded the prestigious Carrosse d'Or, which traditionally rewards a filmmaker for his or her entire career, to a great name in African cinema, Malian Souleymane Cissé. At the age of 82, he became the second distinguished filmmaker on the continent since Senegalese Sembène Ousmane, in 2005.

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It is a legend of African cinema that the Cannes Film Festival will celebrate this year

In fifty years of career, Souleymane Cissé is the author of an incandescent work, placed under the auspices of poetry and political revolt. His first films, shot in a dictatorial political climate, were plagued by censorship, and the SRF rightly celebrates the political courage it took the filmmaker to bring them to fruition. All are now classics, starting with Yeelen, the story of the confrontation between a father and his son, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1987. Twelve years later, Baara, chronicle of sound and fury around a student revolt, obtains the Stallion of Yennenga, the highest award of Fespaco, the pan-African film festival.

► Also listen: "Each of my films has been a liberation

Moving from fiction to great spectacle, like Waati to minimalist documentary, Souleymane Cissé has always stayed the course, avoiding ideology to create art, and express values that cross space and time. Last year, a documentary about him, directed by his daughter, Fatou Cissé, was screened out of competition. Souleymane Cissé will receive the Carrosse d'Or on May 17 in Cannes, during the opening ceremony of the Filmmakers' Fortnight.

► Read also: Souleymane Cissé, the dean of African cinema in Cannes (in 2015)

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• Cinema
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