Sissako, Beyond Territories : The Film To be somewhere precise yet stand nowhere at all, to embody one’s convictions, yet never miss the essential, to rise up and be present at the critical moment, to bear witness to a world waiting to tell itself and be retold, to come and go, both at once, abandoning […]
France, hailed as being the birthplace of human rights, is a far cry from respecting them when it comes to its contemporary judicial system-functioning differently pending on whether you are rich or poor, and most of all: a French citizen … or not.
Right after Germany’s defeat during the first World War, the Society of Nations (SDN) placed Kamerun under the trusteeship of France and Great-Britain. Forced labour and the hardship during the construction of the Douala-Yaounde railroad marks the birth of a structured movement of resistance to the oppressor. In 1948, the French army starts a terrible repression against the UPC (very popular separatist party), which was created the same year. Ten years later, UPC party leader Ruben Um Nyobe is murdered in the bush.
