Just a Movement (Juste un movement)

Directed by Vincent Meessen (France/Belgium, 2020, Color, 108 minutes)
Languages: French, Wolof, Mandarin

On May 11, 1973, a voice in Dakar cried out, “Omar is dead!” Omar Blondin Diop, a young militant philosopher whom Jean-Luc Godard had cast in La Chinoise (1967) as an articulate Maoist, was said to have committed suicide in his Gorée Island prison cell. His family and friends don’t believe a word and demand to know the truth of this political crime. Just a Movement is a free reprise of La Chinoise that reimagines its characters fifty years later in Dakar and updates its plot, centering Omar Blondin Diop as the key character. A meditation on politics, justice, and memory, Director Vincent Meessen oscillates between documentary and filmed essay to question the Senegal of yesterday and today, and the not-so-subtle neo-imperialism of a China that uses education and culture as forms of soft power.

Screening at Row House Cinema.