second line Jimmy Jena-Louis film Hamid Benamra
Second Line Poster film Hamid Benamra

Second Line

Documentary 110 min (2024)
Haïti
color 2:35 - 2K

a JETMEDIA, NUNFILM & DUNIA FILM production

Stéphanie BENAMRA & Mohamad Malas

Direction, Photography, Editing, Screenplay

Hamid Benamra

Poems

René Depestre
Mahmoud Darwish
Alexander Pushkin

Cast

Jimmy Jean-Louis
Coco Joe
Haile Gerima
Larry Clark
Moussa Touré
José Vatin
Bernard Oheix
Mustapha Boutadjine
Gérard Théobald
Ekaterina Desyatova
Olga Kabo
Anyiam Kenneth Chimezie
Thomas Pollard
Marie Bodin
Guem
Phil Darwin
Christelle collas
Philip Judith-Gozlin

Voice

Stephanie Benamra

second line Joe coco film Hamid Benamra

SYNOPSIS

"I question the past, I reject the present, I say yes to the future, my whole being longs for the sun.
Here I am ! Negro with vast hopes, I mobilize all the volcanoes that brooded the new land of my consciousness.
And my coup overturns all the cloudy creeds of my childhood."
(René Depestre)

Coco Joe and Jimmy Jean-Louis, a movie couple united by dance.
Natives of the islands, Guadeloupe for her, Haiti for him, both saw their careers take off in Paris, Coco at the Moulin Rouge, Jimmy on TV and in Haute Couture fashion shows.
Together in the multi-cultural capital they meet personalities of Pan-African origin who, like them, fought to make their dreams shine.
Borrowing the universal words of the poets, they evoke the suffering of their ancestors, without investigation or investigation, but with a duty of memory.

"The blood of the black humanities bursts my blue veins.
All "races" are melted in the crucible of my ardent heart."
(René Depestre)

second line Jimmy Jena-Louis film Hamid Benamra

HAMID BENAMRA'S ARCHIVES

Second Line Hamid Benamra Moulin Rouge

THE MOULIN ROUGE

Hamid Benamra had the privilege of filming Coco Joe at the Moulin Rouge in show, in the boxes and in rehearsal in 2005.
He interviewed Thierry Outrilla, the former artistic director who entered the Moulin in the 70’s when first « Black » dancer Lisette Malidor was lead dancer.
He also filmed Coco's recent personal choreographies.

Second Line Hamid Benamra JCC

JCC 1992

In 1992 at the JCC, Hamid Benamra filmed the debate around cinema from the South versus cinema from the North: Souleyman Cissé - film director (Mali), Djibril Diop – filmmaker (Senegal), Idrissa Ouedraougo – Filmmaker (Burkina), Catherine Tasca – Minister Delegate for Francophonie (France), Serge Adda – director of Canal Horizons (France), Jacques Perrin – director, producer, actor (France).

second line Joe Coco film Hamid Benamra

THE CHARACTERS

Second Line Hamid Benamra Jimmy Jean-Louis

Jimmy Jean-Louis

He made his debut as a model and dancer. He is now an ambassador at large to Haiti, founder of Hollywood Unites for Haiti to promote art and culture.
As an actor, he played the Haitian in Heroes and worked with Bruce Willis, Jennifer Lawrence, Monica Bellucci, Gerard Depardieu… In the film by Philippe Niang, he is Toussaint Louverture, the slave known as the « Father of Haiti ».
Jimmy is also a member of Artists for Peace and Justice.
Second Line Hamid Benamra Joe Coco

Coco Joe

"The light of the boards is ephemeral, that of faith is eternal." Coco was a Moulin Rouge dancer over 17 years. The second dancer of African origin after Lisette Malidor.
"Being black is not a costume!"(Josephine Baker) Coco pays homage to her elders, Lisette Malidor and Joséphine Baker, and apply herself to pass down their worthy heritage.
"France is home, the Caribbean is home, Africa is home, India is home… No matter where, if your body is home, then everywhere is home." Aware of the suffering of her ancestors, she evokes the memory of those deported from slavery and insists that their history is not deported to the archives.

Second Line Hamid Benamra Haile Gerima

Haile Gerima

Ethiopian film director Haile Grima was born on 1946 in Gondar. He has been living and working in the USA since 1968.
He is a leading member of the L.A. Rebellion film movement, also known as the Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers. Since 1975, Haile has been an influential film professor at Howard University in Washington, D.C. He is best known for Sankofa (1993), which won numerous international awards.
Second Line Hamid Benamra José Vatin

José Vatin

After studying journalism in Paris he worked for the ORTF (The French radio) and for France 3 (French National TV channel).
He is a free poet and author of : La transgression du silence et La vie après l’indicible, 6 novembre 1942.
Second Line Hamid Benamra Gérard Théobald

Gérard Théobald

Founder of 4Tan that highlights "Négritude" through films, books and photos.
Gérard Theobald directed several social and politics documentaries, he is the author of De Ducados à Maldoror, Retour au pays des rois nègres.
Second Line Hamid Benamra Ekaterina Desyatova

Ekaterina Desyatova

A Russian actress who studied Pushkin for 7 years and embodies the Poet's Russian wife.
Second Line Hamid Benamra Moussa Touré

Moussa Touré

He directed the films The Pirogue and Bois d’Ébène produced by France 2. Moussa Touré was born in 1958 in Dakar (Senegal), he is a writer, producer, actor and filmmaker. He started his carrier as a technician for film director Ousmane Sembène. Then in 1987, he turned to direction with a short film and founded his own production firm called Les Films du Crocodile.
Second Line Hamid Benamra Thomas M. Pollard

Thomas M.Pollard

Actor, vocalist. UCLA Film School, L.A. Rebellion too. Dublin, The Abbey stage; Liam Neeson,Ray McAnally.
Spirituals with Jessye Norman, Bob Wilson in Paris, which became home. Steve Lacy Sextet Naked Lunch.
Known for Frantic by Polanski, with Harrison Ford. Worked on, worked in Gerima's Bush Mama, Larry Clark's Passing Through. Immortal and Penitentiary as Thommy.
Second Line Hamid Benamra Marie Bodin

Marie Bodin

She is a geographer, photographer and film director who lived in Haiti for 12 years. She works for Haïti Inter a web documentary channel that focuses on culture and on the History of Haïti. She speaks Haitian fluently.
Second Line Hamid Benamra Guem

Guem

Guem is a percussionniste, musician and dancer of Algerian origins. He composed Le Serpent, re-recorded in 1996 for the program Ça se discute on France 2.
Second Line Hamid Benamra Phil Darwin

Phil Darwin

He is a congolese stand-up showman, actor and writer. He presents the daily radio show Phil Darwin’s Theories on Africa n°1 (Paris).
Second Line Hamid Benamra Anyiam Kenneth Chimezie

Anyiam Kenneth Chimezie

A football player from Nigeria who emigrated to Russia 12 years ago. As he travelled across Siberia, people used to stop and touch him because they had never seen a man with black skin.
Second Line Hamid Benamra Bernard Oheix

Bernard Oheix

Author of Café Croisette and la métisse du peuple des épines. He is the former cultural director of the Palais des Festivals in Cannes were he programmed African artists such as Salif Keita, Youssou N’dour and Mory Kanté.
Second Line Hamid Benamra Philip Judith-Gozlin

Philip Judith-Gozlin

"Love me or hate me, I won't stop shining" He is an actor and Film Director and Producer. He paid tribute to Josephine Baker with an exhibition and a show for UNESCO and later produced a film about her.
Second Line Hamid Benamra Olga Kabo

Olga Kabo

A Russian film and theater actress who became famous in 1989 for her role in Lysistrata Comedy which brought her the reputation of a Russian movie sex symbol.
She became internationally known for her role in The Ice Runner.
She loves and knows by heart Pushkin.
Second Line Hamid Benamra Raphael Confiant

Raphael Confiant

French writer Raphaël Confiant was born in 1951 in Martinique.
During the 1970s, he became a militant proponent of use of the Creole language and he is one of the co-founder of the créolité movement. Reacting to the Négritude movement, which emphasized the African origins of the Antillean people, the créolité movement emphasizes the diversity of Antillean ancestry and cultural heritage.
He has been a dean in Litterature and Human Sciences at the University of the Antilles and Guyana.
Second Line Hamid Benamra Rodney Charles

Rodney Charles

Rodney Charles’ first screenplay won the Greater London Arts Advanced Film and Video Award. In 2016 he produced and premiered the documentary feature ‘In Exile’ at Toronto International Film Festival. As a film actor Rodney has collaborated with notable directors such as Wim Wenders, Mike Figgis and Antoine Fuqua.
He is a founding member and the Vice President of the African Artists’ Association in Hollywood.
Second Line Hamid Benamra Mustapaha Boutadjine

Mustapaha Boutadjine

He was born in La Glaciere, a popular suburb of Algiers. Mustapha Boutadjine was a student at Les Beaux Arts of Algiers in 1974. There he set up and headed the design section from 1979 to 1988. He was also a teacher at the school of architecture and urbanism in Algiers.
As an artist, he makes collages of revolutionaries, turning fashion magazines into committed portraits, such in the series called: Black is toujours (still) beautiful.
second line film Hamid Benamra

THE POETS

René Depestre

"At the small zoo, you can only see small animals like the racial prejudice, a rodent with a bony shell, armed with long, sharp incisors. It mainly attacks Negroes."

René Depestre is a Haitian poet. In 1945, he published his first collection of poems, Étincelles. His commitment to decolonization earned him exile from Haiti and then from France before his rehabilitation. His novel Hadriana dans tous mes rêves received the Prix Renaudot in 1988.

Alexander Pushkin

"Better the illusions that exalt us than ten thousand truths."

He is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature.
His maternal great-grandfather was Major-General Abram Petrovich Gannibal, a nobleman of African origin who was kidnapped from his homeland by Ottomans. He was freed by the Russian Emperor and raised in the Emperor's court household as his godson.

Franz Fanon

“To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture.”

He was a Franchophone Afro-Caribbean psychiatrist from Martinique.
As well as being an intellectual, Fanon was a political radical, Pan-Africanist, and Marxist humanist concerned with the psychopathology of colonization[8] and the human, social, and cultural consequences of decolonization. He is the author of Black Skin, White Masks.

Mahmoud Darwish

"Poetry and beauty are always making peace. When you read something beautiful you find coexistence; it breaks walls down.""

He is regarded as Palestine's national poet. He has been described as incarnating and reflecting the tradition of the political poet in Islam, the man of action whose action is poetry.
second line Jimmy Jena-Louis Joe coco Jose vatin haile gerima film Hamid Benamra

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