L'Arbre à palabres
Anne-Laure de Franssu
1999 - 47 min - Mini DV - Couleur - France

This is more than just a return to Ivory Coast after an absence of 16 years, and certainly not a tourist voyage.
The thread of this film is a quest : trying to find the young African woman who looked after me when I was small, carried me on her back, as gently as Africa carried me ; that is to be the sense of my film, an evocation of the past. It is done through meetings with women in Abidjan, the upbringing that they transmit to their children, their culture, their difficulties and their optimism.
Beyond my view as a little girl, I wish to discover this African woman who carried me and understand what has changed for her in 20 years and what has changed between us. And above all transmit this humour, this warmth and this generosity that makes my attachment for this land more sensual than verbal.