The film, which comes out in Senegal two days after its release in France, had been presented in the Official Selection – but out of competition – of the Cannes Film Festival 2022.
Seventeen years earlier, in the same place, a film on North African skirmishers during the Second World War caused a sensation in Cannes: "Indigènes", by Rachid Bouchareb which earned the cast a collective interpretation prize.
This time, Mathieu Vadepied focused his story on the only Senegalese skirmishers with, in the title role, the star Omar Sy.
Presentation of the film "Tirailleurs", in the presence of actor Omar Sy and director Mathieu Vadepied during a press conference in Dakar on December 20, 2022 © SEYLLOU / AFP
"This story links the two countries, Senegal and France. It is completely my story. It is also completely my identity", he declared at the end of December in Dakar during a press conference presenting the movie.
Shot partly in Senegal but also in the Ardennes, the film follows the fate of a father, Bakary (Omar Sy) and his son Thierno (Alassane Diong), who are torn from their family and find themselves in the trenches of the Great War, in tricolor uniform.
"Not here to blame"
Beyond the horror of war, Vadepied puts the difficult relationship between a father and his son at the center of his film.
Faced with Bakary who just wants to bring his boy home alive, Thierno, galvanized by military ambition and the discovery of France, threatens to escape him.
If "Tirailleurs" is first and foremost a father's fight to save his son from war, the political significance of this film is unequivocal.
Presentation of the film "Tirailleurs", in the presence of actor Omar Sy and director Mathieu Vadepied during a press conference in Dakar on December 20, 2022 © SEYLLOU / AFP
"The idea is to question. To question the historical relationship of France to its former colonies, what do we say about that today, do we know what we have done?”, his director told AFP at the Cannes Film Festival.
If he denies having made a "frontally political" film, he hopes that it will clean up the "cavities" of the national narrative.
And above all, he specifies, "we don't act as if it doesn't exist, we don't move without. These stories have to be told, passed on. Everyone has to know them".
Created by Napoleon III in 1857 in Senegal, hence its name, the infantry corps of skirmishers then expanded in its recruitment to men from other regions of West and Central Africa conquered by France at the end of the 19th century.
Most of the skirmishers thus came from territories which are today Mali and Burkina Faso.
The skirmishers were more than 200,000 to fight during the First World War, 150,000 for the Second, 60,000 in Indochina.
This is one of the first times their story has been brought to the screen.
"We are not here to make you feel guilty, but to recognize painful stories and free yourself from them", assures Mathieu Vadepied.
Actor Omar Sy (c) and director Mathieu Vadepied (d) on the red carpet for the presentation of the film "Tirailleurs", December 20, 2022 in Dakar, Senegal © JOHN WESSELS / AFP
Forgotten by French politicians for decades, the skirmishers and their heirs still deplore a lack of recognition today, in particular because of lower pensions than those of their French brothers in arms.
"Today, our generation needs this story for our construction, to take history, to know how we build ourselves in relation to these two countries", continued the interpreter of Lupin, co-producer of the film.
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© 2022 AFP