° Friday, January 26th - 6 p.m.
Screening of the documentary film Ghost Fair Trade, written and directed by Laurence Bonvin and Cheikh Ndiaye, followed by a discussion led by Aboubacar Demba Cissokho, in the presence of Carole Diop, Nzinga Mboupand Mourtada Gueye.

Switzerland - 2022 - 38 minutes - Color and Black & White

SYNOPSIS: On the site of the International Foreign Trade Center of Senegal (CICES), the Dakar International Fair has been held annually since 1974. The film introduces us to a masterpiece of modernist architecture through this flagship event and all the other commercial, cultural and political activities that punctuate the life of the site and contrast with the calm of everyday life. A narrative emerges, with invisible presences evoking the complex history of the site, blending animism, modernism, independence and post-colonial heritage.

« […] At the International Foreign Trade Center (CICES), exhibitors fine-tune their stands, slogans and advertising posters to lure the rather scarce clientele of the annual Dakar International Fair. Laurence Bonvin seized on the pretext of this mercantile event to film a site emblematic of the desire of Léopold Sedar Senghor, the first president of independent Senegal, to establish vernacular architecture. It was two Frenchmen, however, who, in the early 1970s, were entrusted with the design of these modernist buildings, based on repetitions and variations of the triangular shape. In the first part of Ghost Fair Trade, co-directed with artist Cheikh Ndiaye, static shots capture this masterpiece of graphic purity from every angle. The formal rigor then shifts to a more historical (with photographic archives and voice-over) and, above all, fantastic evocation of the CICES: filming beyond the immediate visible, the Swiss filmmaker conjures up the geniuses of the place, facetious guardians of an architectural complex still haunted by a pan-African dream of prosperity. […] »
Source : Emmanuel Chicon - Visions du Réel, Films 2022, Burning Lights Competition.

Trailer
Distribution: http://laurencebonvin.com