Hélène Claudot-Hawad,
Nathalie Michaud
2009.
France.
55’
Is it still possible to live a nomad's life today? Can a person continue to walk on multifarious paths that lead to ever-changing horizons? How can this void be filled' These disturbing questions are all the more acute in the arid lands of the Sahara and the Sahel, as their economy is gradually smothered, their population criminalised, and their territories ruthlessly coveted for their rich mining potential. In an effort to keep chaos and meaninglessness at bay and to resist the ultimate dispossession of the self – that of the imagination – forty-four Toureg poets gathered for three days and three nights in Agadez, in November 2006. The aim of the gathering was to join forces and define resonant pathways freed from the shackles that currently immobilise their society, and to reinvent new ways of weaving a present.
Can one still live as a nomad today? Can one continue to walk on multifarious paths that open into ever-changing horizons? How can one fill the void ? These harrowing questions are all the more acute in the arid spaces of the Sahara and the Sahel as their economy is asphyxiated, their population criminalized, and their territories ruthlessly coveted for their rich mining resources. In order to resist chaos and meaninglessness, in order to fight against the ultimate dispossession of the self, that of the imagination, forty-four Touareg poets met for three days and three nights in Agadez, in November 2006. The aim of the gathering was to sketch out and define resonant pathways liberated from the shackles that immobilize their society today, and to re-invent new ways of weaving the present. Through an aesthetic language that favours a close approach to faces, bodies, glances, and gestures, this film endeavours to capture the issues at stake and the emotions of the protagonists in performance. It presents an unknown aspect of the Touareg world, which gives an inside view of society, thus conveying the unsuspected richness of an original culture through its poetic and artistic production, and conjuring up the way its aesthetic and ethic choices are inscribed in modernity.