THE CRAZIES
Culture is, in essence, the alpha and omega of all development. It is the substrate on which all identity construction and social claims are based. It is for a society, what the heart represents for the organism. By carrying out this documentary project, the objective is to put cinema at the service of the preservation of Malian cultural heritage and at the heart of the resilience of communities. The artistic approach starts from what culture represents for a human being, to tell its contribution in the fortification of contemporary Mali and to challenge the collective conscience of MALIANS on the danger that threatens them by relegating their values, rites, traditions and ancestral know-how.
The film, first of all, tells its story, through the prism of factual elements that will make the link between the past and the present, with as an angle what culture represents in the collective imagination of the populations in Mali. Secondly, the film, in a natural narrative approach, traces the history of pioneers in the cultural sector, in an approach of promoting tutelary know-how and transmitting a science that stands the test of time.
The story is told by four (4) "madmen" who, in their daily walks, lead us to discover the different sectors of culture. The choice of the "madman", in the artistic approach, is not fortuitous. It characterizes two obvious facts: 1) the natural sympathy and empathy that a madman arouses in society and 2) the veiled innocence and ignored sincerity that appear in the words of a madman.
The common thread of the film is based on the premise that culture leaves no citizen indifferent and that each individual, regardless of their environment, identifies with cultural values and claims an identity, beliefs and essences, specific to them or their community. Despite this obvious fact, culture is neglected in many African countries. In Mali, just by analyzing the allocation allocated to it in the national budget, it goes without saying that the discourse proclaimed with conviction by politicians is out of step with reality. Thus, like "madmen", cultural actors continue their monologue in favor of more attention and funding without benefiting from concrete answers.
By integrating "the madman" as the common thread of this film, our approach is to shock the consciences, those of decision-makers and cultural professionals, in an educational and sociological approach. The documentary is presented in four (4) acts, representing dissociable sequences, schematized in the treatment. Each act is an element of the puzzle that can be broadcast independently of the others or concomitantly as a whole.
The film is intended to be a story, told through the prism of philosophical questions and the subjective views of four (4) "madmen", embodying the main characters of the documentary and the point of view of the director that I am. The said characters, artistically forming the same and unique point of view, are in constant movement, in search of essences and in a repetitive exercise of questioning.
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Fousseyni MAIGADirector
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Fousseyni MAIGAWriter
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Mariam KAMISSOKOProducer
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Maimouna DOUMBIAKey Cast
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Fily TRAOREKey Cast
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Jeanne DIAMAKey Cast
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Abdoulaye MANGANEKey Cast
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Project Title (Original Language):FATOW - LES FOUS
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Project Type:Documentary
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Runtime:1 hour 30 minutes 18 seconds
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Completion Date:February 15, 2025
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Production Budget:90,000 USD
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Country of Origin:Mali
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Country of Filming:Mali
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Language:French
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Shooting Format:35mm
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:Yes
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Student Project:No
Fousseyni MAIGA is the most active Malian filmmaker over the last five years, with around twenty audiovisual works produced and more than 50 projects (films, series and documentaries) produced through his audiovisual and cinematographic production structure ARC-EN-CIEL FILMS. As the standard-bearer of a new audiovisual and cinematographic offer in Mali, Fousseyni MAIGA claims a cinematographic model oriented towards local realities and resolutely turned towards the public.
He began his professional career in 2006 as a journalist and writer. From 2012, after obtaining his Master II in Communication and his Advanced Studies Diploma (DEA) in Business Law, he launched his approved agency in Communication and continued with the functions of Communication Advisor which led him successively to the Prime Minister's Office, in three ministerial departments and with several international organizations as a Consultant.
In 2018, after training in Screenwriting and Directing in Canada and France, he decided to devote himself entirely to film and audiovisual production. In 2022, Fousseyni MAIGA devoted himself to auteur cinema, with the ambition of bringing Malian cinema to the international scene. His first auteur film was a short fiction film entitled "WOLONWULA (SEPT)". The film won more than twenty international awards in Africa (GRAND PRIX DU FESTIVAL DE KHOURIBGA IN MOROCCO) and in the USA. Building on this success, he launched three new highly competitive works in 2023: the creative feature documentary "FATÔW (LES FOUS)", the television series "LA VEUVE" and the feature fiction film "LE RÊVE DE DIEU". All three projects were selected at the 29th edition of FESPACO. Fousseyni MAIGA is currently the Director General of the National Center of Cinematography of Mali. In addition to this position, he is a researcher at the Laboratory of Collaborative Visual Anthropology (LAVISCOL) of the University of Letters and Human Sciences of Bamako. He is currently finalizing a doctoral thesis on the image, images and the imagination.
For the filmmaker and cultural operator that I am, it is appropriate to specify from the outset that this film is intended to be a powerful advocacy tool in favor of a sector that is dying in general hypocrisy. I believe, in view of the dramatic situation that characterizes this sector, that it is necessary to recall certain realities and to drive a dynamic of concrete actions. Only cinema, through its magic, can trigger such effects.
Through this film, I want to recall that: the Constitution of Mali gives pride of place to culture, recognizing it as a driver of economic, social and environmental development; the added value of the cultural sector on the GDP in 2021 is estimated at 228 billion; Mali is a hotbed of creativity and the heir to a cultural heritage that must be preserved, transmitted and renewed; culture, with technological development and globalization, has become an economy in its own right that encompasses several cultural and creative industries.
Culture is no longer just a cultural manifestation or expression; it has become a real economy. And with more political ambitions and proactive actions, culture can support economic growth in Mali. By making this film, my intention is to promote a new perception of culture and to lay the foundations for collective action with medium-term results: an increase in the budget allocated to culture and a better structuring of the cultural value chain.
The common thread is to present key areas of the cultural sector in Mali in a contemporary approach: yesterday, today and tomorrow. The contribution of each area is recounted in order to present its history, its historical achievements, its economic potential, its impacts, its challenges and its different actors. Each area is told in a narrative approach involving a champion, an expert and witnesses.
The champion is a key player in the field in question, a professional experienced in the task, an individual recognized in the sub-sector and who shares his personal experience through the prism of the aforementioned elements. The expert is a specialist in the field, an administrative manager, a consultant or an informed observer of the field. Witnesses are key players in the field in question. The champion plays a driving role in the presentation of the field. His extensive knowledge of the field and his personal experience inform the framework of the sequence on his field.
The expert, based on scientific elements, statistics or factual information, supports the hypotheses, in an educational approach to identify the real impact of the field in question and its added value. Finally, the witnesses are observers who will give credibility to the different information conveyed by the expert and the champion. The testimonies of each are fueled by real images, reconstructions, illustrative images, graphic animations and various representations.
The approach to making the documentary is based on three elements that intertwine in a coherent and powerful artistic construction: fiction, which will represent nearly a third of the creation, the story in an intergenerational transmission approach, and the factual, which will be nourished by the unpublished testimonies of great connoisseurs of the different sub-sectors of culture.
The camera will be constantly moving and the light omnipresent. The different cultural performances and events, which will be fully covered throughout the year throughout the country, will be the greatest asset of this production, on a technical level. The beams of light that will be constantly created during filming, will rely on fluid camera movements, to give a particular intensity to each of the sequences of the documentary.
All the sequences of the documentary film will put into perspective the links of correlation between culture and development, man and culture, because the documentary first and foremost aims to be a reappropriation of a part of the contemporary history of Mali, long marginalized, and a projection on the economic potential of the cultural sector.