Weekend Special

Here’s a couple of links we’ve bookmarked for reading and watching this week. Chadian director Mahamat Saleh Haroun’s new film “Grigris” premiered in Cannes. First reviews are up in Variety, the Guardian, Hollywood Reporter and rfi.fr. Rfi also has an interview with Haroun about his first meeting with the film’s lead actor and Burkinabe dancer Souleymane Démé (that’s Haroun, Démé, and Anaïs Monory, on the red carpet above; watch one of the film’s opening scenes to get what’s going on here). Less space was taken up in the papers by the fact Démé was held for hours by immigration officers in Brussels Airport on his way to Cannes. Says Haroun: “I think when you want a continent of freedom, it is outrageous that not only do we [Haroun has been residing in France for years] expell the undocumented, but also those people who come here with their papers in order.”