The Great Green Wall

The Great Green Wall. Inna Modja. "I thought I really knew Africa. During this journey I realized I know nothing".

The Great Green Wall. Niger is the crossroads on the way to Europe. 60 million Africans are expected to leave in the next future. Young men leave Africa through Sahel and Sahara.

The Great Green Wall (2019)
Feel-good / Nature / Music
Theme: Saving the World
Country: United Kingdom
Director: Jared P. Scott
Screenplay: Jared P. Scott
Starring: Inna Modja
Production: Sarah MacDonald, Jared P. Scott, Nick North, Charly W. Feldman / Make Waves
Duration: 90 min
Rating: 7
    Language: English, French
    Subtitles: English
    Distribution: WaZabi Films
    Print source: WaZabi Films
    Cinematography: Tim Cragg
    Editing: Pilar Rico
    Music: Charlie Mole, Inna Modja
    Sound: Adam Prescod
Collaboration: British Embassy Helsinki
Helsinki International Film Festival (HIFF) Love & Anarchy.
Viewed at Kino Regina, Helsinki, 28 Sep 2019.

The Great Green Wall production notes quoted by HIFF: "The creator of City of God and The Constant Gardener, Oscar Nominee Fernando Meirelles is the executive producer in the project: “I first came to hear about the Great Green Wall when directing the Rio Olympics opening ceremony, which had a segment about forests. I was amazed by the scale of the project. The Great Green Wall is an environmental and social project: support for it is very important. This is a hopeful documentary about a positive initiative.”"

"A Buena Vista Social Club meets Years of Living Dangerously, as renowned Malian singer Inna Modja takes us on a music-driven journey of hope, hardship, and perseverance across Africa’s ambitious Great Green Wall. Modja documents the efforts to build the great green wall of forests throughout the African continent: can the expansion of Sahara be stopped?"

"A riveting rhythmic story of optimism, solidarity, and resolve chronicling the zeitgeist of this unique moment and revealing the soul of a new generation seeking to control their own destiny." Production notes quoted by HIFF

Wikipedia: "The Great Green Wall, or Great Green Wall of the Sahara and the Sahel (French: Grande Muraille Verte pour le Sahara et le Sahel), is Africa's flagship initiative to combat the effects of climatic change and desertification. Led by the African Union, the initiative aims to transform the lives of millions of people by creating a mosaic of green and productive landscapes across North Africa." 

"Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan and Chad thereafter created the Panafrican Agency of the Great Green Wall (PAGGW)."

AA: An engrossing epic documentary on the Great Green Wall project to stop the Sahara desert from expanding towards the south.

At the same time, it is a wonderful music film hosted by Inna Modja, a popular singer, activist and a fighter for women's rights.

The Great Green Wall is also a road movie taking us from West Africa to the east coast, from Mali to Ethiopia, through the Sahel region (the region south of the Sahara).

Everywhere Inna Modja meets singers, they make music together and record an album to combat desertification. One might call The Great Green Wall the movie a contemporary rain dance. They sing about poverty, they sing about courage.

Mission statement: "we must reinvent the future". The present is threatened by drought and migration. A great vision is needed to change the course of the development, to start a revitalization of the ecosystem.

During the long journey we witness desolation. We visit the lands with the highest birth rate on the planet. Inna Modja herself is from a family with seven children. We visit a birth clinic in Niger, the crossroads on the way to Europe via Algeria and Libya. 60 million people are expected to leave in the near future. We visit migrants' hideouts. We hear about smugglers who take people's money. Women are raped and tortured. Men are left in danger. It's a tale of epic fraud. It's also a heartbreaking story of Boko Haram, manipulating children to become soldiers and suicide bombers.

Towards the end of the film we visit Ethiopia, famous for its horrendous famine of the 1980s. But today, there is another story to tell. Reclaiming the desert has started. Large green areas are being created by hard work and human effort. This sequence reminds me of Wim Wenders's Sebastião Salgado movie The Salt of the Earth (2014) in which the Salgado family is restoring rain forest on the family estate.

The grand vision of The Great Green Wall has been recorded in epic long shots and majestic camera movements. The Ethiopian achievement has been covered in inspirational drone shots.

The music is appealing and versatile. On its way is an "album to capture the spirit of the African dream. We will not see it fulfilled, but we sow the seeds in our lifetime."

MATTI YLÖNEN (HIFF):

Saharan eteläpuolella rakennetaan “vihreää muuria”, eri valtioissa toteutettavien metsitysprojektien muodostamaa mosaiikkia. Jos eri metsityshankkeet saadaan jonain päivänä kaikki yhdistettyä, kattaisi metsävyöhyke 7000 kilometrin matkan. Yksi elokuvan tuottajista on Oscar-ehdokas Fernando Meirelles, joka kuuli hankkeesta ohjatessaan tv-lähetystä Rion olympialaisten avajaisista.

Malilais-ranskalainen artisti Inna Modja kulkee visuaalisesti näyttävässä dokumenttielokuvassa mantereen läpi seuraten vielä alkuvaiheissaan olevan mosaiikin rakentumista. Vasta 15 prosenttia muurista on valmiina, mutta joissain maissa hanke on jo edennyt merkittävästi. Modja tapaa resurssikonfliktien ruokkiman Boko Haramin väkivallan vuoksi perheensä menettäneitä lapsia, aktivisteja, ja viljelijöitä joiden perheiden tulevaisuuden elanto voi riippua vihreän muurin onnistumisesta. Elokuvaa rytmittävät Modjan tapaamiset, keskustelut ja yhteinen sävellystyö muiden yhteiskunnallisesti aktiivisten muusikkojen kanssa.

Modja näkee muurin metaforana toivolle, jota ilman kylien tyhjenemistä ja siirtolaisuusvirtojen kasvua voidaan tuskin pysäyttää. Elokuva ei kuitenkaan peittele sitä, että ilmastonmuutoksen ruokkimat ympäristöongelmat ja poliittiset haasteet eivät tee hankkeesta helppoa.

Matti Ylönen