Un Fleuve humain

In Mali, the River Niger’s inner delta is a tangle of canals, rivers, lakes, islands, ponds, meadows, flood zones and a mosaic of ethnic peoples. The film methodically sets about undermining appearances and clichés attached to this sea of tranquillity. A fish-seller is worried: the riverside rushes are disappearing, as are the fish that shelter among them. The Peul herder talks of the big cats that are becoming rarer, of his cattle’s sickness now the ponds are drying up. The Niger is a living being, not just a surface of water, a complex organism that is slowly dying under our eyes, without our realising it. (Yann Lardeau)