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The protagonist of Lupin, the Netflix series with third season scheduled for October, presented Father and Soldier at the BCN Film Fest. The 45-year-old actor plays a Senegalese peasant who enlists in the French colonial army to protect his son, forcibly recruited in the middle of World War I. In a gesture as ironic as it is symbolic, the film ends up suggesting that the Unknown Soldier, buried under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, may have been black.

Is it true that Father and Soldier has made Senegalese war veterans compensated? It is not known if it is thanks to the success of the film, but before they had to spend at least six months a year in France to receive money from the state, and that has changed: they can collect the money without having to move from their country. As in Yao, he delves back here into his Senegalese origins. Are your films more personal? Yes, I've been involved in both as a producer. In this case, we had been talking about the film since we made Untouchable, in which Mathieu Vadepied, director of Father and Soldier, was director of photography. The film is very much tied to my personal story: the actor who plays my son, Alassane Diong, is my nephew, and then there is France, Senegal, and the intertwined history of these two countries. And most of the film is spoken in Fula, the language I grew up with. We chose it for that reason, although the most important thing was that there was a linguistic barrier between the protagonist and the country to which he arrives in the middle of the war.Have you presented the film in Senegal, as you did with Yao? Yes, yes. With Yao it was very exciting, because there was that moment of my father rediscovering his roots. We also presented this one there because, in addition to the aid from the French government, we also had those from Senegal. It was also very important on a symbolic level, of course.Is there a Senegalese film industry? Here we know the work of Abderrahmane Sissako and little else. Yes, but it is an industry oriented to the European public, financed by the French and with an eye on the big festivals. Senegalese cinema will not come into existence as such until it produces films for the Senegalese themselves, with themes that matter to them. Only in this way will it be able to become independent.

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Cinema.

Omar Sy: "Part of me knew the Oscar was from 'Moonlight'"

  • Writing: PEDRO DEL CORRAL Madrid
  • Writing: MARÍA CONGOSTO Madrid

Omar Sy: "Part of me knew the Oscar was from 'Moonlight'"

Television.

Omar Sy, the world's most famous white-collar thief

  • Editor: FÁTIMA ELIDRISSI

Omar Sy, the most famous white-collar thief in the worldCould it be said that Father and Soldier follows the line of Rachid Bouchareb's Indigenous Officers, who claimed the role of soldiers from North Africa? Yes, absolutely. That film inspired us, and I think, because it talks about World War II and ours about the first, they complement each other perfectly. Especially considering that nothing more has been done about the soldiers of the colonies. It is curious that, being the son of immigrants, you have also immigrated, why did you move to Los Angeles? I left France to protect my family. The success of Untouchable was so huge and sudden that it completely surpassed us. It was very difficult to manage, we found it very complicated to educate our children in that context, and we decided to take a year off. Los Angeles was the logical destination, and once there I was chaining works (X-Men, Jurassic World, Transformers ...) So yes, you're right, history has repeated itself: I've become an immigrant, and my children I've become children of an immigrant, as I was myself. There they have another way of relating to it. They are used to celebrities and leave me alone. When they see me pass, that same day they have already seen fifteen others more famous than me. It is not a very pedestrian city. So there are also fewer opportunities to be stopped on the street, don't you think? Yes, the truth is that Los Angeles is a city in which little is walked. Every year there is a new film about the famous Parisian banlieue (marginal periphery). Which do you think best represents the environment you grew up in? Mathieu Kassovitz's hatred, which was the first, remains the one that best describes it. Omar Sy at the Barcelona Film Fest.Marta PérezEFEEn France, you have faced Marine Lepen and Éric Zemmour, and in America you have participated in BlackLivesMatter marches, can you relate one thing to the other? I have often spoken about what is happening in France, and if I have done so it is because someone has to do it for things to start changing. But I'm much more cautious when it comes to the United States, because I didn't grow up there and that's another story. Out of respect for all that slavery has suffered, I cannot afford the slightest comment, nor enter into comparisons. A few days ago, Ralph Yarl, an African-American kid, was shot for knocking on the wrong door, and you retweeted the news. Somehow you're still involved in that struggle, right? Yes. That was a very clear injustice, and it must be denounced. But in the United States my position is more that of observer, I am there and I see how things are evolving. What is clear is that the treatment that both countries reserve for racial minorities remains closely linked to the past. But I insist that the context is totally different. The history of blacks in America has nothing to do with that of Europe. Slavery cannot be compared to colonialism. As hard as the colonies were, slavery is something else: men deprived of freedom, completely dehumanized... His words have often been manipulated, for example when the Weinstein case, who was his mentor in the United States. How do you still use the networks? Twitter is just a tool I use when I'm interested. Such attacks and manipulations go with theLove, more when you have positioned yourself against racism. It is the price to pay for speaking your mind when your words have a certain echo for the fact of being famous. But the truth is that I slip. In addition to the new season of Lupin, what projects do you have in the pipeline? What makes me most excited is the remake of The Killer, which will be directed by John Woo himself. We shoot shortly. Nathalie Emmanuel will be the murderer and I will be the policeman. When I was young, in the 80s, I kept renting that movie in the video store. He was obsessed.

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