“Ni chaîne, ni maîtres” tells the story of Massamba and his daughter Matti, both slaves on a sugar cane plantation in 1759 on the Isle de France (the former name of Mauritius). One evening, Matti decides to run away to find his freedom. Madame La Victoire, a slave hunter, is then hired with her sons to capture Matti. Massamba decides in turn to run away to find her daughter before the hunters get their hands on her.
The entire story of the film is built around the concept of marronage, which refers to the escape of black slaves during the slavery period. Simon Moutaïrou, director and screenwriter, talks about this first feature film at Bondy Blog. Interview.
For your first feature film, you decided to address the issue of slavery and talk about maroonage. Why this choice?
When I discovered slavery in primary school, I was angry. I couldn’t accept it and I hadn’t spoken to anyone about it. Later, around the age of 17, I discovered maroonage in West Indian literature, through the writings of Patrick Chamoiseau, Maryse Condé and Aimé Césaire. It gave me a lot of pride, because it was the image of a rebellion and resistance that you don’t see in history books.
Once I learned what marronage was, it gave me inner strength. I realized, after several years in French cinema, that there were no films on this subject. After writing two successful screenplays with “Boîte Noire” and “Goliath”, the doors opened to me, and I decided to bring this theme to the screen with “Ni chaînes, ni maîtres”.
For this film, you were particularly inspired by the book “Maroonage in Isle de France: Dream or Response of the Slave?” by Amédée Nagapen. Did you use other sources to document your work?
Creole literature helped me a lot in constructing the film, and Amédée Nagapen’s book was a real goldmine to inform me about marronage and the slaves’ way of life. It is also in this book that I found the character of Madame La Victoire, played by Camille Cottin in the film. She is the only historical character in the film.
To work on the script, I was also supported by historians such as Vijaya Teelock, who chaired the UNESCO Slave Route Committee for a long time, as well as Khadim Sylla, a specialist in Wolof culture. In total, around twenty historians, anthropologists and linguists accompanied me in order to make this film as realistic as possible.
You say that your film also has an educational scope through the theme of slavery. What do you think about the treatment of this story in schools today?
I am 43 years old and I am still learning incredible things about the history of France. Our country has this ability to not look back and not clearly assume that all these things existed. This is our history, and it does not only concern the descendants of slaves, but everyone. In my opinion, cinema has a role to play in education, because it allows history to be brought to life and to move in a different way than history books.
It was important to take back control of our narrative and tell our stories.
It was important to take back control of our narrative and tell our stories. With this film, we have the ambition to broadcast it in middle and high schools to reach young people, including those on the African continent and the Caribbean, so that they can appropriate this image of resistance.
Your film addresses the issue of racial violence. Did your actors have any difficulty playing characters with racist and violent remarks?
This is a difficulty that I absolutely did not expect. It was very complicated for my actors to hear and pronounce certain words loaded with meaning. And this, despite the goodwill that reigned between them. It was particularly difficult for Camille Cottin, or for Ibrahima Mbaye, the interpreter of Massamba, who had to leave the rehearsal room at one point, because it was too hard for him. Finally, they let themselves be inhabited by the story, and on the set, they were incredible.
In your film, you highlight African cultures, particularly through language, with Wolof, but also through cultural and spiritual aspects. Why was it important to highlight them?
For me, resistance is as much about courage as it is about culture. Oppression and colonial orders often seek to destroy cultures because they represent identity and self-pride, they constitute a collective force. What touched me about marronage is that these slaves fled the plantations to rebuild their culture elsewhere. There is a form of rebirth in marronage, and I think it was essential to show these identities being reborn, to see people getting back on their feet thanks to their culture. Highlighting these cultures is also a form of resistance, even today.
You say that this film, although it documents the past, resonates with our current times. Can you tell us about it?
Oppression still exists. Today, one can be oppressed based on gender, social class, skin color, religion, etc. However, there are ways to free oneself from it, and I wanted to hold up this mirror so that the spectators could be inspired by my characters, who managed to free themselves from the chains of the colonial system.
I invite people to also “maroon” against oppression.
I invite people to also “maroon” against oppression. It is our duty to look together at what happened in order to be able to reconcile. I made this film not to divide, but to bring people together and spark debate. I want to mend open wounds and move viewers from shock to resilience. I have often been criticized for reopening these wounds from the past, but I believe that we must reopen them in order to better heal them.
Comments collected by Sélim Krouchi
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