5 Questions for a Filmmaker: Philippe Lacôte

The Ivorian filmmaker wished he had made Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams, based on the filmmaker’s own dreams, when the fantastical infiltrates the real.

Credit: Festival de Cannes

Philippe Lacôte grew up in Abidjan, next to a movie theater named The Magic. After linguistic studies and a stint in radio, he started making film at age twenty-two. Among his films are The Messenger, The Libinski Affair, Cairo Hours and the essay/documentary/diary Chronicles of a War – a personal portrait of the neighborhood where he grew up during the first weeks of the civil war in 2002. Lacôte produced the much talked about feature Burn it up Djassa by fellow Ivorian filmmaker Lonesome Solo, which premiered at Toronto International Film Festival in 2012, and he directed the Ivorian contribution To Repel Ghosts to the short film compilation African Metropolis released in 2013. Philippe Lacôte’s acclaimed feature debut, Run, starring Abdoul Karim Konaté, Isaach de Bankolé and Reine Sali Coulibaly, premiered in Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section and is opening in Côte d’Ivoire and France today, December 17.

What is your first film memory?

My first film memories are from our neighborhood cinema in Abidjan. When my mother had to run errands she would drop me there and pick me up 20 or 30 minutes later, with the result that I never got to watch an entire film, just snippets. One sequence that comes to mind was of two cowboys drinking whisky and talking around a fire. I don’t remember the name of the film, but I’ll never forget the shadows and the unreal atmosphere.

Why did you decide to become a filmmaker?

It wasn’t really a choice, but rather something that I had to do. There was this time when I was watching a Bruce Lee film at The Magic (the neighborhood cinema) with my friends. At one point in the movie, when a crook was chasing Bruce Lee, this guy got up and stabbed the screen to save the hero. In hindsight, I think that’s the day when I knew I was going to become a filmmaker. I discovered, in this art form, a way to be an artist without being seen, which suits my personality

Which film do you wish you had made?

Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams, which is based on the filmmaker’s own dreams. I just rewatched a part of the film, about a boy who disobeys his mother and sneaks out to watch a procession of foxes on their way to a wedding. I love when the fantastical infiltrates the real and I love Japanese cinema.

Name one of the films on your top-5 list and the reason why it is there.

It’s either Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter Robert Mitchum’s portrayal of a fanatic pastor is amazing – or Indian filmmaker Ritwik Gattak’s A River Called Titas. Both films are beautifully shot in black and white and both are extremely evocative and emotionally charged.

Ask yourself any question you think I should have asked and answer it.

“Why do journalists always have one question that is impossible to answer?” Because they think that filmmakers have an answer for everything.

 

Further Reading

Coming home

In 1991, acclaimed South African artist Helen Sebidi’s artworks were presumed stolen in Sweden. Three decades later, a caretaker at the residential college where they disappeared found them in a ceiling cupboard, still in their original packaging.

Imaginary homelands

A new biography of former apartheid homeland leader Lucas Mangope struggles to do more than arrange the actions of its subject into a neat chronology.

Business as usual?

This month, Algeria quietly held its second election since Abdelaziz Bouteflika was ousted in 2019. On the podcast, we ask what Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s second term means for the country.

The complexities of solidarity

Assassinated in 1978, Henri Curiel was a Jewish Egyptian Marxist whose likely killers include fascist French-Algerian colons, the apartheid South African Bureau of State Security, and the Abu Nidal Organization.

From Naija to Abidjan

One country is Anglophone, and the other is Francophone. Still, there are between 1 to 4 million people of Nigerian descent living in Côte d’Ivoire today.

De Naïja à Abidjan

Un pays est anglophone et l’autre est francophone. Quoi qu’il en soit, entre 1 et 4 millions de personnes d’origine nigériane vivent aujourd’hui en Côte d’Ivoire.