Sarah Maldoror

Film dedicated to Toto Bissainthe, the Haitian singer that Sarah Maldoror also filmed at an earlier stage. Here, the magic of cinema is summoned and the cinema of the Lumière brothers and other figures that marked the seventh art is revisited.

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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.

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In this documentary, Sarah Maldoror offers a portrait of the Mexican painter Vlady (1920-2005, born Vladimir Kibaltchich), filming mainly his works with voice-over commentary by the artist himself, answering the filmmaker's questions.

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A portrait of the famous photographer, shot for his 1987 exhibition at the musée d’art et d’histoire de Saint-Denis.

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Omar, a young Franco-Algerian from La Garenne-Colombes, decided to spend his vacation in the country of his ancestors, Algeria. On his return, he boards the ferry “Le Tassili” and during the crossing, he meets people who share his doubles, in a good mood that does not hide their heartbreaks.

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For the France 3 show, Mosaïque, Sarah Maldoror met Assia Djebar on Sunday March 29, 1987 on the occasion of the publication of her book Ombre Sultane. She discusses the status of the traditional woman in the Arab Muslim world: "The woman is always on the move, she is never anchored. To the extent that she is always in the process of repudiation, she is in the process of leaving. With Ombre Sultana, I wanted to make the reader feel that these women from elsewhere are like her, even if the reader is Western.

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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.

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In this report on an annual conference known as RIFEN, Black women from around the world gather to discuss points of common interest and need, including community leadership and shared experiences of migration and transplantation.

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The Senegalese man of the film’s title is Léopold Sédar Senghor, the poet and first president of Senegal, who is remembered by his neighbors in Normandy.

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Commemorating the 1986 Tunis-Paris exhibition Privileged Spaces and Times: French-Speaking Intellectual Production in Tunisia, Sarah Maldoror’s film points the way toward a more polyvocal understanding of the role of France’s National Library worldwide.

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In this short piece, fledgling editors, reporters, and illustrators describe their work on Point Virgule, a newspaper by and for young people, including publishing articles on racism.

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Maldoror traces the dramatic life of the self-taught sculptor Alberto Carlisky, who fled his native Argentina after being imprisoned in 1944 by the Perón regime for his political views, and who apprenticed in the Paris studio of the Russian Cubist sculptor Ossip Zadkine before striking out on his own.

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In this short piece, fledgling editors, reporters, and illustrators describe their work on Point Virgule, a newspaper by and for young people, including publishing articles on racism.

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Sarah Maldoror reports on Christiane Diop, editor of the publishing house Présence africaine, which includes an interview with illustrator Sophie Mondesir, about her work as the first black woman to run a major publishing house in Paris.

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Sarah Maldoror interviews women of different nationalities who serve as “public” writers, linking French administrative bodies with people who cannot speak or write French.

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In this segment on immigrant cultures for the television program Mosaïque, a young Senegalese woman who cooks in a workers’ hostel dreams of traveling throughout France and getting to know her adopted country, taking issue with the cliché of the impoverished and helpless immigrant.

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Sarah Maldoror observes a stage production of Paul Claudel’s The Hostage at the Théâtre de la Comédie in Reims.

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A portrait of Haitian singer Toto Bissainthe, whose musical journey is marked by her desire to disseminate creole singing.

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Portrait of the French painter-etcher, lithographer and director.

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A story of political imprisonment set in a mental hospital where the Stalin state police placed whoever their opponents were.

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This modest portrait of the fashion designer Emanuel Ungaro seems to mark a departure from Sarah Maldoror’s usual subjects, but it nonetheless reveals her abiding fascination with the sensuality of the creative act.

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Bokolo and Mamadou, sweepers in the city of Paris, are looking for a way to pay for the return home of one of their sick comrades. When they find an old book of recipes in the trash, they discover a passion for French cuisine and decide to participate in a televised cooking competition.

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Maldoror casts a sympathetic light on one of Haitian literature’s most influential figures, the poet and political activist René Depestre.

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First staged in Krakow and the Gdansk shipyards in 1980, where Poland’s Solidarity movement was born, and here performed at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris, Wielopole, Wielopole by the theater company Cricot 2 merges themes of Christ’s Passion and fascism with the Polish director Tadeuz Kantor’s own childhood memories.

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Documentary short that explores the meaning of the locals’ African identity through the Carnival festivities.

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Maldoror reports on a painting exhibition of the Cuban artist Wifredo Lam at the Artcurial gallery in Paris in 1980.

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Sarah Maldoror documents the opening of the Théâtre Noir de Paris, a Négritude-inspired theater company and cultural association dedicated to artists and performers from Africa and the French Antilles.

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Short piece for the TV series Aujourd'hui en France [Today in France]. Reporting on a Joan Miró exhibition at the Maeght Foundation, Sarah Maldoror enjoys filming the Spanish painter and sculptor engaging with children during a theatre piece. The filmmaker's central themes are in full bloom here: the theatre, the interrelationship between the arts and the transformation of the childhood experience through art. The ensemble is like a work by Joan Miró translated into real life.

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Documentary about Cape Verde and the island of Fogo produced by the revolutionary government of the new country. A culture learning to live without tutelage.

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Sarah Maldoror finds inspiration in the hidden corners of Paris, where architecture was shaped by foreign styles and influences.

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