Film from Mauritius: Gazing at the stars

Simin Zetwal (Gazing at the stars) is a feature film by David Constantin with Edeen Bhugeloo, Sharonne Gah-Roussety, and Jérôme Boulle (2022). It is the first film made by a Mauritian filmmaker acquired by the ASCL Library.

The story
21 year-old Ronaldo lives in a poor neighbourhood in Rivière noire on Mauritius, with his retired, tormented father Bolom, who drinks and mourns his late wife. They do not get on. Ronaldo is ambitious and tries to get money in every possible way, to be able to leave the island. He dresses in fancy clothes dreaming of elsewhere, and wants to get a visa for Canada. His father refuses to sell the plot of land to his late wife’s brother, a wealthy Hindu real estate developer. This land could finance Ronaldo’s dreams of another life far away.
One day, his father has disappeared. When Ronaldo gets in his car to go looking for him he discovers Ajeya, an immigrant worker from Bangladesh who has just fled her life of a modern slave in a sewing workshop with a sack full of passports which her employer had confiscated.
What follows is a mystical night road trip across Mauritius by Ronaldo and Ajeya, who is persecuted by her employer. It appears that Bolom, who is Creole, has gone to the cemetery where his wife is buried according to Catholic rites. As he feels he will not live long any more himself, Bolom wants to honour his wife by executing the Hindu rituals for the dead.

Unknown side of Mauritius
David Constantin presents in his second feature film another side of Mauritius, far removed from the stereotypes of beautiful sandy beaches and luxury hotels connected with the island. He portrays the complex social realities on the island, the lives of the working class and the local blend between Creole and Hindu cultures. Nature plays a big role in the film; during their nighttime tour the characters are filmed in the cane fields and the labyrinthic vegetation of Crève-Cœur, in the center of the island. They get lost in it to better find themselves. (*)

The director
David Constantin was born on Mauritius in 1974. He studied at the Ecole Supérieure de l'Audiovisuel in Toulouse. He began his professional career as a camera operator. Back in Mauritius, he created the company Caméléon Production, who has since produced all his films as well as numerous short films by young Mauritian directors. His films deal with the profound changes in Mauritian society and their impact on human relationships. In 2002, his first film Diego L'Interdite (documentary on the deportation of the population of the Chagos islands to Mauritius) received the European Grand Prix for First Films in Switzerland. In 2009 he realized the short film Made in Mauritius, on the effects of globalization on Mauritian society. Lonbraz kann was his first feature film (2014). It showed the effects of the closedown of a sugar mill on the former factory workers of the mill who watch helplessly the metamorphosis of their world. According to the website for the film (http://eli357.wix.com/lonbrazkann), it depicts “a society caught in the web of time with the global intruding in the individual life.”

Simin Zetwal received several awards: including the Best Editing Prize at the Journées Cinématographiques de Carthage (Tunisia), the Bronze Award and the Fipresci Award (Critics' Prize) at the Luxor African Film Festival (Egypt), and a Special Jury Mention at the FESPACO (Burkina Faso).

The DVD of Simin Zetwal is available in the library, it is also possible to borrow an external DVD player!

*Regarder les étoiles (Simin Zetwal) de David Constantin, by Olivier Barlet https://africultures.com/regarder-les-etoiles-simin-zetwal-de-david-constantin-15820/

Elvire Eijkman