The Other Land
Director Rosan Xavier
Countries France
Duration 71 min
Synopsis
During the eighties, civil war in Suriname afflicted the region of the river standing as a border with French Guyana, the Maroni. Descendants of former rebel slaves, Bushinengué people left their sanctuaries on the high plateaus to reach the French side. It is in the same region that Xavier Rosan’s parents, a couple of very young civil servants from the West Indies, lost their first child, before returning to Bordeaux. This belatedly disclosed family secret provides the starting point for a journey on the Maroni, a world as much as a river, where Western notions of boundaries and identities run aground.
During the eighties, civil war in Suriname afflicted the region of the river standing as a border with French Guyana, the Maroni. Descendants of former rebel slaves, Bushinengué people left their sanctuaries on the high plateaus to reach the French side. It is in the same region that Xavier Rosan’s parents, a couple of very young civil servants from the West Indies, lost their first child, before returning to Bordeaux. This belatedly disclosed family secret provides the starting point for a journey on the Maroni, a world as much as a river, where Western notions of boundaries and identities run aground.