Zita Hanrot, Motell Foster, Josué Gutierrez
Filled with the warm tropical light and lush greens of Martinique, shot on 16mm, multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich’s intoxicating feature debut imagines the life of Martinican writer and activist Suzanne Césaire.
A pioneer of Afro-Caribbean surrealism, a prominent feminist and anti-colonialist and co-founder of influential Martinique cultural journal Tropiques, Césaire’s impressive intellectual achievements have long been overshadowed by those of her husband, poet and political leader Aime Césaire. Guided by Suzanne’s writing and testimony from her family, Hunt-Ehrlich’s film seeks to redress this balance, honouring lost memories and imagining the unknowable in its quest to “make a film about an artist who didn’t want to be remembered”. A delicately layered and beautifully realised metafictional essay, shimmering and allusive, The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire reclaims its elusive subject and makes her radical voice feel startlingly present.
