''The Middle Passage'' (french: Passage du milieu) is a 2000

docudrama Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television and film, which features dramatized re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of documentary and drama and "a fact-based representation of real event". Docudramas typic ...

film directed by Guy Deslauriers about the trans-Atlantic voyage of black

slaves Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

from the West Coast of Africa to the Caribbean, a part of the

triangular slave trade Triangular trade or triangle trade is trade between three ports or regions. Triangular trade usually evolves when a region has export commodities that are not required in the region from which its major imports come. It has been used to offset ...

route called the

Middle Passage The Middle Passage was the stage of the Atlantic slave trade in which millions of enslaved Africans were transported to the Americas as part of the triangular slave trade. Ships departed Europe for African markets with manufactured goods (first ...

. It portrays the transportation of slaves from

Senegal Senegal,; Wolof: ''Senegaal''; Pulaar: 𞤅𞤫𞤲𞤫𞤺𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭 (Senegaali); Arabic: السنغال ''As-Sinighal'') officially the Republic of Senegal,; Wolof: ''Réewum Senegaal''; Pulaar : 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 � ...

to the sugar plantations of

Martinique Martinique ( , ; gcf, label=Martinican Creole, Matinik or ; Kalinago: or ) is an island and an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France. An integral part of the French Republic, Martinique is located in th ...

and the miserable and often fatal conditions on board the

slave ship Slave ships were large cargo ships specially built or converted from the 17th to the 19th century for transporting slaves. Such ships were also known as "Guineamen" because the trade involved human trafficking to and from the Guinea coast ...

. The script is by Patrick Chamoiseau based on a scenario by Claude Chonville.Philippe Azoury
"Contre le black-out"
''

La Libération LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figur ...

'', 14 February 2001 It was a Martinique-Senegal-France co-production and was screened at the

2000 Toronto International Film Festival The 2000 Toronto International Film Festival, the 25th annual festival, ran from September 7 to September 16, 2000. Along with special events to commemorate the anniversary, there were a total of 330 films screened. There was a special screening of ...

.Peter Howell
"Film festival returns to African roots"
''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part ...

'', August 20, 2000. The film has no dialogue, only a voice-over, spoken by

Maka Kotto Maka Kotto (born December 7, 1961) is a Cameroonian-born French-Canadian politician. Educated in France, Kotto immigrated to Quebec, Canada, where he was an educator before entering politics. Kotto was a Parti Québécois member of the National A ...

. Visually, it presents disconnected, slow-motion views of the slaves to evoke both their suffering and the resistance it produced, the source of the

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

and of West Indian identity. When it was generally released in February 2001, the reviewer for ''

'' said that it successfully occupied a territory "somewhere between the fiction of phantoms and the documentary of fantasies". The reviewer for ''

Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...

'' judged it "a brave but ultimately unsuccessful attempt" to fill the " inematicvoid" on this subject.Thomas Sotinel
"Ressusciter les images de la traite négrière"
''

'', 14 February 2001 : "Une tentative courageuse mais inaboutie ... de combler ce vide".

References

External links

''Passage du milieu''
Les films du Raffia. * 2000 films French docudrama films Films about slavery 2000s French films {{2000s-France-film-stub

See also

References

External links