Traverser

After the Crossing

Forum 2020

Ivorian Inza has come a long way – from the Ivory Coast through Libya and across the Mediterranean to Italy. Now he’s stuck there with his girlfriend, her child and other refugees and is trying to cross the mountains either by train or on foot to get to France, where a friend and another woman are waiting for him. Joël Richmond Mathieu Akafou stays very close to his protagonist, following him wherever he goes and whatever he does – organising things by phone, watching football, calling his family back home. The abstract nature of such concepts as safe third country regulations, curfews and residency status have a mirror held up to them here in concrete, highly personal fashion: we watch Inza having to sit and wait or make another attempt to cross; we see the inner turmoil of his desire for a future and his sense of being tied to the past; there are conversations about escape, identity and questions of belonging. But Traverser does not stylise Inza’s struggle, observing him instead in a life that chafes between romantic entanglements, attempts to escape and the rules of European asylum law; a life that never really finds peace.

by Joël Richmond Mathieu Akafou
with Inza Junior Touré, Kader Keita, Michelle Bawa, Loulou Bawa, Assamoi, Papys, André, Amara, Chanella, Binta Touré France / Burkina Faso / Belgium 2020 French, Dioula 77’ Colour Documentary form

With

Inza Junior Touré (Bourgeois)
Kader Keita
Michelle Bawa
Loulou Bawa
Assamoi
Papys
André
Amara
Chanella
Binta Touré (Bourgeois' mother)

Crew

Written and Directed by	Joël Richmond Mathieu Akafou
Cinematography	Joël Richmond Mathieu Akafou, Mateo Tortone
Editing	Jeanne Oberson
Sound Design	Ivan Broussegoutte
Sound	Joël Richmond Mathieu Akafou, Corneille Houssou
Assistant Director	Laurent Bitty
Production Manager	Faissol Gnonlonfin
Executive Producer	Faissol Gnonlonfin
Producers	Faissol Gnonlonfin, Florent Coulon
Co-Producers	Berni Goldblat, Quentin Noirfalisse
Co-Production	Les Films du Djabadjah Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso Dancing Dog Productions Brüssel, Belgien

Produced by

VraiVrai Films

Joël Richmond Mathieu Akafou

Born in Bouaké, Republic of Côte d'Ivoire in 1986. He completed a master's degree at the Institut Supérieur de l'Image et du Son (ISIS) in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Afterwards, he studied at the Institut National Supérieur des Arts et de l'Action Culturelle (INSAAC) in Abidjan. Traverser is Akafou's first feature film.

Filmography

2012 Bia n’de; 13 min. 2015 Zara; 7 min. 2016 Nourah; 26 min. 2017 Vivre riche; 53 min.