Les morts ne sont pas morts, 2014

Production of Malik Nejmi

2012-2014 Villa Medicis, Institut Français de Florence, KUlte Gallery

“Malik Nejmi’s film opens with a collective commemoration in a mosque. The film is followed by images and sound throughout the sequences. The artist invites us to contemplation and meditation. Through the phrase of the doctor-poet Birago Diop, “the dead are not dead”, we seek the presence of the disappeared through faces, places and words. The religious is here put at the service of a commitment and a cause: that of the human being, whatever his country, his religion, his colour. Political discourse relays religious discourse through demonstrations, messages and slogans. The testimony of the photographer-filmmaker invites us to maintain the social link that allows us to continue to work with generosity and to honour those who have left us.”

Jalil Bennani