Aimé Césaire

Lumières Noires

Documentary exploring the thought and work of Aimé Césaire.

Martinique Island, 1974. Inspired by the writings of the Martiniquais poet and politician Aimé Césaire (1913-2008), the dreamer Robert Saint-Rose, known as Zétwall (Star in Creole), aspires to be the first Frenchman to step on the lunar surface.

Léon G. Damas (1912–1978) was the first poet to “live Négritude”, according to the Senegalese poet, politician and cultural theorist Léopold Sédar Senghor. Cosmopolitan and always in transit, his writing is a chorus of melodies and imagery imbued with angst and melancholy and strongly influenced by jazz and blues. Punctuated by images of the landscapes of French Guiana and the voice of the artist, the film exemplifies the poetic documentary form to which Maldoror frequently returned.

In five parts, this documentary tells the story of the colonisation of the French Overseas Territories. Slave descendants, coloniser descendants, historians, admirals, rebellious writers and politicians recount a lasting past that keeps on igniting the economic and social relations of these territories even to this day.

Aimé Césaire - Le Masque des mots is a portrait of the Martinican writer who calls himself a rebellious negro and for whom the poetic act represents an act of freedom.

Documentary on the négritude movement through one of its founders, Aimé Césaire.

Shortly after his death in 2008, Maldoror made this film about her longtime friend and collaborator, the Négritude poet Aimé Césaire. In this film, she retraces the steps of Césaire’s travels across the globe — particularly back to his hometown in Martinique, where Maldoror interviews his relatives about his life — and her working relationship with Césaire, including fragments of her previous films about him, Un homme, une terre (1976) and Le masque des mots (1987).

Jean-Marie Serreau, découvreur de théâtres

Aimé Césaire, un Nègre fondamental

A three-part study that introduces audiences to the celebrated Martinican author Aimé Césaire, who coined the term "négritude" and launched the movement called the "Great Black Cry".

L'Avenir est ailleurs

Alternating interview segments, shots of Martinique landscapes and scenes from Aimé Césaire's play La Tragédie du roi Christophe (1963), Sarah Maldoror portrays her friend as a politician, a poet, and a founder of the Négritude movement.

De Charles de Gaulle à Emmanuel Macron, les gardiens de l'empire

Jamaican-born Stuart Hall looks at the history of the Caribbean islands through interviews with modern inhabitants.