More than 300 personalities are calling on the French authorities to provide visas to cultural actors trying to flee the new civil war that broke out in their country last April.
On the initiative of filmmakers Valérie Osouf and Hind Meddeb – who made a documentary on the Sudanese revolution –, a column published in The world invites the French government to provide visas to Sudanese artists whose country is in the grip of a civil war. It has been signed by 330 personalities, including filmmakers Abderrahmane Sissako and Alice Diop, rapper Abd al Malik and the former president of the Cannes Film Festival, Pierre Lescure. We met director Valérie Osouf on the Croisette. Interview.
Franceinfo Culture: Why this call in “Le Monde” May 17?
Valerie Osouf: A fourth war broke out in Sudan on April 15, the fourth conflict since its independence. All civilian populations are in danger, but artists and intellectuals are even more exposed since they particularly showed up at the time of the popular uprising. Many Sudanese artists are part of the resistance committees and they are therefore more vulnerable than others to the repression that will follow this war because whichever general wins, Sudan will face the return of a regime authoritarian.
What are you asking of the French authorities?
In this podium (paid item), we ask that the Ministry of the Interior and the Quai d’Orsay grant visas to all the people for whom we have provided a detailed list, with all the administrative documents, regardless of the country from which they request it. There are no longer any evacuation operations and the humanitarian corridor is not yet in place. This list includes 70 artists, all disciplines combined, and their families. Part of the team of Goodbye Julia by Mohamed Kordofani [premier film soudanais présenté à Un Certain Regard] is still waiting in Cairo for a visa to arrive in Cannes.
What news do you have from Sudan?
There is a photographer who was thought to be dead, Saad Eltinay, who had exhibited at the last meetings in Arles. But he had been kidnapped and he is now free. However, relatives of filmmakers with whom we are in daily contact have been killed in recent days. Other people managed to cross borders by land or sea. Some are in Ethiopia. They are also expected at Cannes because they have a film in post-production which is presented at the film market entitled The Camera never cries. They are urgently waiting for a visa at the French consulate in Addis Ababa to reach Cannes as soon as possible. Still others arrived in Egypt, reached Chad or South Sudan.
Some, like the filmmaker suhaib Gasmelbari (Talking About Trees), are waiting for a pass to take the ferry to Saudi Arabia and then to France. We are in network with several cultural institutions which offer to welcome them on their arrival. Finally, there are artists who remain completely hostage, stuck in their homes with their families. There is no water, no electricity and it is 45 degrees. Food is lacking. Internet fails regularly. We have a way of sending them money and we are organizing a collection thanks to the support of the CGT-Spectacles. You should know that a bus from Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, to Aswan, Egypt cost 35 dollars per person. Today it’s gone to $600 per person. It is absolutely necessary that we manage to collect sufficient sums so that the people, the artists and their families, who have decided to do so, can leave the country.