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THE SLAVE ROAD OF OUIDAH
Vodoo and reconciliation in Western Africa
29 Minutes, Digibeta, 16:9
Year of production: 2007
Directed by: Bettina Ehrhardt
Produced by: bce film
Versions: French, German
Guide Martine de Souza shows tourists the monuments along the slave street of
Ouidah, one of the hubs in slave trade between West Africa and Brazil. If the
tourists are Afro-Americans it may happen that one of the visitors says to her:
"Martine, maybe your ancestor sold my ancestors into slavery. And now we meet
here”.
Martine is the great granddaughter of Slaver Francisco Felix de Souza, friend of
the King of Abomey, who covered his neighbors with war and sold prisoners of war
into slavery. The life of Felix de Souza inspired Werner Herzog to his film
“Cobra Verde”.
In the first half of the 19th Century, at a time when the British had already
banned slavery and searched the seven seas in pursuit of slave ships, hundreds
of thousands of slaves, walked down the slave street, as the dirt road leading
from Ouidah to the sea is now officially called.
In Ouidah monuments remind us now of the history of slavery. That Africans were
involved in the slave trade is no longer denied. During Voodoo Festival on
January 10th, the national holiday of the ancient natural religion, the whole
town is drawn to the beach to sacrifice the gods at the Gate of No Return.
UNESCO has built this monument in memory of the fate of the slaves.
This film portrays “descendants of those who sold and those that were sold”, as
it reads on one of the placards in the crowd. They want to reconnect to the
religion of their ancestors, says Sonia Marc, the lead singer of a gospel group
from Martinique, who traveled to the Voodoo Festival. "We want to free us from
the weight that oppresses us. We want to leave behind us the pain, that we carry
around with us from birth. And we want to help to rebuild Africa, so that
creativity can flourish and we can live in a peaceful world”.
For licensing and more information please contact:
Björn Jensen
email: jensen(at)gingerfoot.de
© by bce film, 2007
