From Chad, a Filmmaker and a Star Determined to Tell Stories of the House


ABAKAR SULEYMANE People would come to me and say, “You’re so brave to be able to do this.” This was shocking.

Haroun, you remain the only film director with international visibility in Chad. Logistically, does filming in the country continue to be as difficult as when you started?

Harun It’s very difficult to shoot in Chad because we don’t have a real industry. We don’t have real technicians. Everyone who works with me in Chad has other jobs and then they come back when I shoot. We don’t have professional players either. Sometimes the social pressure is so strong that you can’t find women in the movie who agree to be nude or kiss someone. While looking for an actress for the role of Amina, I met a 40-year-old single mother. “Do you want to act in my movie?” I said. “I’m very interested, but first I have to ask my uncles,” she said. In our society, maternal uncles have to take care of you. So I said, “If you’re not free to do it, forget it.” This is the situation. Then, of course, we do not have financing there. I always look for money everywhere and then go back to Chad to make a movie because it’s a mission for me. This is a responsibility. I am the only active filmmaker there and if I stop making films in Chad the world will get missing images of my country.

Achouackh, what was your path to “Lingui” and acting in general?

ABAKAR SULEYMANE I’m an entrepreneur, so I own a restaurant. I studied journalism after high school and now I’m learning sociology. I do a lot of things, but I always wanted to act. I left Chad when I was 17 while working in fashion in California and came back 13 years later. I met Harun while I was getting ready in 2012. “GreyGris” [his 2013 drama]. I was a costume assistant and then I got a small role. I was hoping for a bigger role next time, but I never thought I would be able to play the lead in a movie. I watch a lot of movies and it was a dream, but I’m a Chad woman and I know it’s not something you do in Chad so I didn’t really try to chase after it and then it happened. I was almost 40, so I thought, “It’s now or never.”

Can you explain a little bit about the meaning of “lingu”, a Chad concept that seems to be of particular concern to women in the movie and refers to this unspoken unity between people?

Harun Lingui is a rule of living together. It concerns everyone in society and starts with your neighbors. It relies on sensitivity among everyone in the community to resist violence. This mother and daughter just have this love with all the other women. They share the same experiences with their bodies – about being pregnant – and this makes them realize that they belong to the same community and have the same destiny, so they have to help each other. Language does not die among women, men forget it because of power.

ABAKAR SULEYMANE In Chadian society, only women have each other when there is a problem because there are things you cannot share with men. The women are behind each other here and it is very strong.



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