Over a decade of friendship and a documentary – Night care − now links Burkinabe filmmaker Moumouni Sanou to his heroines, Adam’s, Odile and Fatim. They are sex workers, but above all mothers who arrange to have their infants looked after overnight. The young 34-year-old director, who left with the Yennenga Gold Stallion at the last edition of Fespaco, films a routine which, from sunset to sunrise, moves the viewer through three worlds: Mrs. Coda, the home of prostitutes and their place of work, Le Black, red-light district of Bobo-Dioulasso, the second largest city in Burkina Faso. Behind the camera, Moumouni Sanou captures the vicissitudes of a daily life where children – Mocktar and Djene – During the day, they monopolize the breasts and bodies, often abandoned, of their mothers, exhausted by their night’s work. The filmmaker’s approach concentrates all the accuracy that one expects from a documentary, especially when he plunges the viewer into a reality that he is far from being able to imagine.
Night care, which had its world premiere in 2021 at the Berlinale where it was in the official selection (Forum), was recently screened in Paris during the last edition of the Cinéma du réel (international documentary film festival) which devoted a special program to African documentaries. The film is currently available on the TV5 Monde website.
franceinfo Africa: you follow in “Night Nursery” the daily life of three sex workers in Bobo-Dioulasso and the one to whom they entrust their children, Ms. Coda. This document is the fruit of a very long observation…
Moumouni Sanou: I spent ten years with them and ten years on the set, Le Black (red light district of the city of Bobo-Dioulasso, editor’s note). I met them in 2012 without thinking that one day I would make a film about them. The idea for the documentary was born when one of them asked me to drop her off to pick up her child because she had no money for the taxi. I’ve done it several times no questions asked. Then, at some point, I asked her who was this member of her family to whom she was entrusting her child without me knowing who it was for the time. She then replied that it was rather an old lady who looked after the children for 1,000 CFA francs (0.15 euro cents) a night. I then tried to meet Mrs. Coda, who must now be around 80 years old, so that she could explain to me how things were going.
It was also a chance to frequent Le Black for years and to be known in the street. When I came with the cameraman, I knew what I wanted to film. I knew where to put the camera. At the start of filming, which lasted three weeks, when I told the cameraman to shoot, he pointed out to me that nothing was happening. He saw no action but I knew, with practice, what was going to happen in the hours to come.
You often film your protagonists when they are asleep and their babies dispose of their bodies because they are still breastfeeding. Did they know that they would be filmed in this way and how the question was broached with them?
Yes ! For these sex workers, anything to do with sex or the body is not a taboo subject. Besides, there was no taboo between them and me either. Showing a breast (because their child is feeding) is not a problem for Odile and Fatim. In addition, the breast here in Africa is even less of a problem when breastfeeding. They really don’t have a problem with their bodies, but that doesn’t mean that I was going to show them off again in this film. There are many sequences that I did not keep precisely to protect and preserve their privacy. They trusted me and the result did not disappoint them.
Bringing this documentary to life was not easy according to your producer, director Berni Goldblatt. How do we get there?
It is also difficult because our authorities do not trust young people. My file was sent, for example, to the Ministry of Culture in Burkina to request funding. But it was rejected on the pretext that I had no experience… There you go, the Etalon d’or!
The meeting with Berni was important because he supported me a lot when I was discouraged because we were not getting funding. It wasn’t easy, especially since I have writing problems because I don’t write or speak French well. Nevertheless, in terms of ideas, I am ready to challenge anyone!
Why this interest in documentaries?
I would like to become a great filmmaker tomorrow and that involves documentaries where we show reality as it is. Unlike fiction where I can, for example, walk on my head whenever I want. The documentary is a school to arrive at the fiction.
How was your vocation as a director born?
From a young age… I started acting in films as an actor in 2002. It was after this experience that I decided to go into directing because I like it and I have a lot of stories to tell. to tell about.
What do you feel when you win the Etalon d’or for your first documentary feature at Fespaco?
I was very happy. You are a director, you come with your first feature film and you win the Etalon… I am happy because I know that my name remains in the history of African cinema thanks to this award. But it’s also extra pressure for the next movie because you wonder how it’s going to go. Everyone is waiting for you. However, I am not afraid even if the next film, which will also be a documentary, will deal with a taboo subject.
Apparently, taboo subjects don’t discourage you…
No, because I am an artist of the Seventh Art and I talk about subjects that interest me no matter what.