27/02/2023 - BERLINALE 2023: In this surprisingly complex doc, Thierno Souleymane Diallo goes off in search of a lost movie. Shoeless

If there was one film that really celebrated cinema this year at the Berlinale, it had to be this one – The Cemetery of Cinema [+see also:
trailer
interview: Thierno Souleymane Diallo
film profile] by Thierno Souleymane Diallo, given one of the Panorama Documentary Audience Awards (see the news). Having said that, ironically, it’s all about one man’s search for a film that’s long gone, which nobody even saw, about the ghosts of old stories and voices that weren’t heard.

It feels like a mockumentary sometimes – in Forgotten Silver, Peter Jackson also talked about a “pioneering” New Zealand filmmaker, Colin McKenzie, and his lost films. But it’s not. What makes it even sadder is that Diallo keeps on repeating that Mamadi Touré shot Mouramani, believed to be the first film made in Guinea, in 1953. It was the year of The Wages of Fear, of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes – take your pick. A year when cinema was thriving. So what happened?!

“Is it a myth or something?” someone asks here. Mouramani’s fate makes you wonder about people deciding which stories are worth saving, which experiences are worth protecting. Diallo is not really a showman, but like Michael Moore all those years ago, he is always around and in front of the camera: asking questions and talking about cinema to anyone and everyone he can find. He travels through the country, usually barefoot, encouraging others to look at their world and see something film-worthy, unmasking “experts” who discuss films they have never seen, chatting up filmmakers who never got their due because of where they came from. Or he just wanders around old cinemas, with faded tickets still on the floor, because someday soon, all this might be gone, too.

There is something sad about a film that just fades away, becomes frail and disappears, and turns to dust if you so much as touch it. But it also makes it feel almost human. When Diallo heads to France and goes through the archives where old films are living out their last days, it’s an intimate moment. It’s a silent goodbye.

Of course, certain statements repeated here are quite common – one can’t go to France, apparently, without having someone moan, “Showing revolutionary films on a MacBook is absurd.” But although Diallo listens politely, he has his own ideas, proving that if now is really the time for more diverse stories, for stories from all over the world, you should grab that camera and tell them. All over again, if needed.

The Cemetery of Cinema was produced by France’s L’image d’après and JPL Productions, Lagune Productions (Senegal) and Le grenier des ombres (Guinea). Its international sales are overseen by Reservoir Docs.