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  7. Xaraasi Xanne

Xaraasi Xanne

Crossing Voices
Raphael Grisey & Bouba Touré, France/Germany 2022, 123 Min., OV with English subs, DCP
Followed by a talk with Raphaël Grisey and Tobias Hering

Xaraasi Xanne (Crossing Voices) recounts the pioneering adventure of Somankidi Coura, an agricultural cooperative founded in Mali in 1977 by migrant workers returning from France. The story of this hard-won utopia on the banks of the Senegal river is told with unique film, photo and sound material from the archive of Bouba Touré. A co-founder of the cooperative, Touré came to France as a factory worker in the 1960s and became a documentarist of the lives and struggles of the West African diaspora. Xaraasi Xanne is the latest result of the long-term collaboration between Raphaël Grisey and Bouba Touré, who passed away in January 2022. (TH)
More on the project 

Raphaël Grisey lives and works in Berlin. He uses video, editorial and photographic works to assemble narratives about politics of memory, migration and architecture. Grisey and Touré’s long-term collaborative project on the Somankidi Coura cooperative was presented in various international contexts, including several manifestations in Berlin, at Savvy Contemporary, Silent Green, and HKW.

Tobias Hering is an independent film curator whose work focuses on thematic film programs dealing with questions of image politics and the role of archives. He has accompanied Grisey and Touré´s research at different occasions as a curator, moderator, and friend and contributed to their book Sowing Somankidi Coura, A Generative Archive (Archive Books, 2017). WEBSITE