Statues Also Die

The wooden masks, confined behind display cases in the coolness of Parisian museum galleries, are not merely ethnographic objects. This documentary, created in collaboration with Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, and Ghislain Cloquet, traces the path of artistic ambition fueled by colonial policies while laying bare, with a sharp eye, how the continent’s creative memory has been devalued. Blending the story of African art’s alienation in the Western world with the aesthetic roots of Black culture, the film lays bare the dark connection between art and exploitation.