From Sani Magori’s film catalogue :
For Better and For Onion
Koukan Kourcia : the Turtle Dove’s Cry
Koukan Kourcia : the Go-Betweens
During his visit to Rennes in november 2014, Sani Magori has been photographed by Joris Le Guidart and had an interview with him.
Extracts from the interview :
JLG : Has the advent of digital film changed film making in Niger ?
SM: Of course it has. Actually, over the past few years film production has increased, concerning both the number of films and of film makers. The cost of production has fallen, implementation has become simpler, consequently many people have started filming. I can say that digital film has made it easier for me to start film making, as I haven’t been in this line for long. Many others, who hadn’t filmed for years owing to a lack of funding, have now started producing again thanks to digital film. This applies for instance to former film makers such as Djingarey Maïga, who used to produce a film every 15 or 20 years has recently made two films over the past ten years. It has revolutionized film making, particularly documentaries, our elders didn’t make documentaries because film stock was expensive and it wasn’t profitable. Documentaries have taken advantage od the advent of digital film, which allows low budget films. For me, the main function of a documentary is to give evidence of a fact, and hand it down to posterity. Therefore, digital filming has had a huge impact on the advent of a new generation o African film makers, particularly documentarists. Think of Nollywood: it thanks to digital filming that Nigeria now ranks second in the world for the number of films produced. All that proceeds from digital films. We make the most of today’s new techniques: we don’t waste time digitizing, we use memory cards, we film, we unload, we can erase, it lowers costs considerably. Nowadays, a film can be made at home by a single person, we have seen such films get worldwide impact. Digital technique has contributed a lot in Africa.
JLG : Do such facilities as CNC (National Center for the Cinema), or the Cinémathèque (Film Library) exist in Niger. ?
S.M: No they don’t. No facility gathers film data, there is no film library. Individuals save their own digitalized films at home. I save all the rushes of my shootings. I can stock all my films, because I have my own production house, I produce my own films and other people’s. We also have a film nursery, a sort of friendly society to help each other produce our own films. When young people don’t have the means or the arguments to convince a producer to finance their project, we give them some equipment, some training, we have various cameras, with graded technologies, PD150 for example which are easy to handle, and if their project is genuinely feasible, we give them a hand. There is a network, Africadoc, which helps to develop a project, to meet professionals