Songs for Madagascar

The awara soup is a kind of stew containing all sorts of ingredients from French Guiana. People say that if someone eats that dish on Easter, he is sure never to leave Guiana.

Records the sights and sounds of the many extraordinary street musicians from the Northeast of Brazil whose music and lyrics tell the stories of their lives with improvised humor, drama and colorful vulgarisms.

Mahaleos voices and music have accompanied the people of Madagascar ever since the collapse of the colonial regime. Yet, even after 30 years of success, the groups seven musicians still keep their distance from the world of show-business, and remain deeply committed to helping their countrys development; their professions range from surgeon to farmer, physician to sociologist and member of parliament. Accompanied by the groups rhythmic melodies, the film follows the singers through their daily lives, giving us a glimpse of the far-reaching social and economic problems of the Malagasy people. The combined talents of the Brazilian, Cesar Paes, and the Malagasy, Raymond Rajaonarivelo, have produced a work that is both ethereal and concrete, poetic and political.

In 1462, the first African slaves were settled on the island of Cape Verde brought by the Portuguese colons. It is supposed that they were the first inhabitants of the archipelagos. They carried with them the rhythms and the seeds of what became the BATUQUE: a music form, performed mostly by women, both singers and dancers. The singers, repeat very strong lyrics, sitting in a circle and beating the rhythms with their hands on a piece of cloth between their legs. While one woman performs a very sensual dance with her hips in the middle of the circle. During the colonial era, it has been strongly forbidden but it remained alive in clandestinity. The group Raiz de Tambarina, one of the oldest groups of Batuque on Santiago island, is composed of ordinary people, saleswomen, fish merchants, drivers... Through their every day life and performances we discover Cape Verde today and their passion for the Batuque.

In the wings of the opera "Maraina", the film combines history and oral memory, to recount in music the first contacts between the natives in the Indian Ocean Islands and the Europians. The film follows the cast's fantastic journey to the place where it all began: Fort-Dauphin, in southern Madagascar. Two differents versions of a moment in African history: one related by the French officers back in the mid-17th century, and the other one by the Malagasy people. The characters tell their own vision of a common past. There was war of course but there were also love stories between those young French soldiers and beautiful Malagasy princesses. A fascinating voyage through Madagascar today, at the heart of its beliefs.

Shot in Lapland and Brazil, this film is about Man’s relationship with Nature, from the indigenous people’s point of view. Listen to the oral culture of the Saamis from the Arctic and Fulni-ôs from Brazil. Beyond the ice fields, beyond the trees, the climates, the skins, the same intuition : the whole future is in their own hands.