Griot
Director Volker Goetze
Countries United States, Senegal, France, Germany
Duration 82 min
Synopsis
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 comment.
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 comment.