04/09/2002 - French filmmaker and photographer, Raymond Depardon presents a story about the hunters of north Africa

The most innovative and adventurous section of the 59th Venice Film Festival, “Controcorrente – Upstream” – has once again upped sticks to take us on a journey to explore new worlds.
Directed by Raymond Depardon, one of the world’s foremost photographers and prize-winning filmmakers, Un homme sans l’occident (A Man Without the West) is about the native hunters of Africa, a race that time and not progress is relentlessly wiping out. Based on the novel by Diego Brosset and set in the early years of the 20th century, it is the story of a young hunter, the last of a race of free men who made their home in the African desert, and lived by what they hunted. “More than anything else, I wanted to portray the desert. I compared it to the west in order for the image of Africa to be deeper and more sincere,” said the 50-year-old director.
He made this film without any of the sophisticated techniques common to modern production, and used a camera made in 1947 with silver nitrate film stock. Depardon concentrated on the essential and was careful never to dominate his subject, something that could easily have happened had he used DV. “I needed a different time frame for this, and made the film much more slowly so as to capture the essence of the story, its places and characters.” Likewise, Depardon’s crew was essential in the extreme. He is familiar with the north African desert, having spent long periods of time there filming the hunters who so fascinate him. It is a race of men who have virtually disappeared in the course of the last century, along with their prey, and those who remain now lead a Spartan nomadic existence. “I did my best to avoid forcing the story and let the film camera roam almost at will, allowing it to be drawn to the energy and excitement of these men who dance and chant as they gear themselves up for the hunt; the testing ground of their strength and courage.”
Depardon says this film is a love letter to the Black Continent that the West thinks is dying. “I am convinced that Africa is our future. That is where the human race sprang from and lived for over 25 centuries.”

(Translated from Italian)