Film

A keeper of West African epic histories, Senegalese griot and songwriter, Ablaye Cissoko, confronts a cold world thatʼs imposing radical changes on his ancient traditions.

By tradition, griots are the living repositories of West Africaʼs oral epics — histories that are crucial for the preservation of West African social structures. The Griot, a documentary by Volker Goetze, uncovers the beauty of West Africanʼs traditional past and discovers that some revolutionary changes may be afoot — changes that could alter the cultural landscape forever.

Brief Description

They fought Islam and won. They fought European colonialism and won. Now, after a thousand years of religious, political and cultural onslaughts, a monolith of West African culture is showing signs of change in the form of a radical new individualism. Kora virtuoso Ablaye Cissoko is our ticket inside the mysterious world of the griot. Griots today are at a crossroads between the traditional, which is increasingly irrelevant, and … something new. What could not be done in a thousand years through the competing ideals of Islam and occidental philosophies is being done by a fundamental reordering of economic opportunity.

The film captures this moment of historic change in the griot tradition, caught now, as it is, between the imperative to maintain the social structures of the past and the need to enter into a dialogue with the international community. We are uniquely situated to undertake this task as we have exclusive access to Ablaye Cissoko, a fast-rising star in the World Music scene and a seminal force behind what may be West Africa’s largest cultural revolution in over a thousand years.

The Filmmakers

Sam Pollard. Co-Producer/Post-production Supervisor. Multiple Emmy Award winning, Peabody Award winning and Academy Award Nominated producer and editor,best know for his work with Spike Lee on When the Levees Broke, Mike Tyson, 4 Little Girls, Mo’Better Blues and Jungle Fever. From time to time, Pollard serves on advisory committees for the National Endowment for the Humanities; National Endowment for the Arts; or the Independent Television Service (ITVS). The idea to have Sam Pollard on board existed already in the early stages of development of The Griot in late 2007. Not only is he one of the most respected documentary editor, Sam Pollard is able to present complex issues in a compelling way in films.

Victor Kanefsky. Co-Director/Editor. 58 years in film industry, Victor Kanefsky ran a film and video editing service that trained, among others, Sam Pollard. Cajun Jockey, Emmy Award; Our Latin Thing and Style Wars, both documentary classics; as well as Distant Harmony, Pavarotti in China; Adam Clayton Powell, Academy nominated; Our Latin Thing, Filmix Film Festival award winner; Ganja and Hess by Peter Gun, official selected at Cannes. Mr. Kanefsky is highly respected as having taught many of the best editors of today, still working and advising, he is the person Sam Pollard learned the trade of Editing from.

Leslie Mulkey (a.k.a. Holcomb Reed). Writer. Film, video, NLE editor (Avid/Final Cut) with over 20 years in the business - worked for CBS News Sunday Morning, 60 Minutes and 48 Hours, ABC News 20/20. His experience at CBS enabled him to make editorial decisions, most of them making it to the final broadcast version.

Sanne Kurz. Cinematographer. Civis International Media Award 2004; National Award for Female DPs – Section Feature Film 2009; Spotlight Commercial Film Festival with the TVC “Lefax Pups” directed by Satu Siegemund. Every Editor complemented the Senegalese footage she captured. Trained also as a documentary filmmaker.

Joshue Ott. Visualist. Mr. Ott creates cinematic visual improvisations, performed live and projected in large scale. Working from hand-drawn forms manipulated in real-time with superDraw, a software instrument of his own design, Ott composes evolving images that reside somewhere between minimalism, psychedelia, and Cagean chance, delivered with an inescapably human touch.

Volker Goetze. Producer/Director. Award-winning musician, composer and producer and close friend of Ablaye Cissoko - they met in 2001 for the first time. Volker Goetze visited and performed many times in Senegal since 1996.