Black Paris (1981)

Most of them come from elsewhere, they are there alive in the heart of the big city whose streets in certain neighborhoods are at times black with blacks. The music danced, played, sung is their striking force here, the language that binds them and brings us closer to them. Before the minuet there was the tam-tam, after the minuet there is always the tam-tam. By means of ancestral instruments they take us back to our origins and testify to their authenticity which must be safeguarded at all costs. Our wandering in the former Paris-la-blanche will lead us to meet the Ballet Kodia, music and dances Central Africa ; Gérald Wilson, American choreographer and amazing dance teacher; Nel Oliver, originally from Benin, printer turned showman; Cheik Tidiame, Senegalese without work and without a residence permit and who can no longer take it, as he says, "to live in shit"; Cathy, a superb West Indian, model at Paco Rabanne, who takes both language lessons at university and singing lessons; Ramiro, refugee from Guinea Bissau and street singer; Nancy Holloway, ex-star of the song of the 60s and who testifies to a recent past. The Black Sugar where every Sunday takes place a musical party, allows them to break the isolation and to discover themselves to others and to themselves.