DVD The Basse Pointe 16 - Camille Mauduech

© Les films du Marigot

In 1948, in Martinique in an atmosphere of strike in a sugar area, a White creole administrator is assassinated ; he is found dead in a sugar field under his supervision. After investigations over weeks, 16 Black cane cutters are arrested and maintained on custody for three years. In 1951, their trial is transferred to Bordeaux in France, a former slave harbour with the ensurance of an exemplary and incontestable verdict; it was the firs trial of the French colonial era in the West Indies.
"On 6th September, 1948, on the Leyritz Plantation in Basse-Pointe, North Martinique, people found the body of Guy de Fabrique, known locally as "békés", hacked to death by machetes in a sugar cane field.

In this former colony, I've always felt, as what they call a "mulatto", someone of the middle classes of mixed race, known here as "saved skin", that Martinique was a pressure cooker. But that through clever strategy, wisdom or negotiation, the pot had been kept from boiling over. But the lid did blow off on 6th September, 1948, just for once. My mixed origins open doors. White, black, mulatto, I belong to none and to all. I've often used this as a kind of strategy, which is stressful but has the advantage of allowing me to unravel a story that's still a taboo on Martinique: the murder of Guy de Fabrique."
Camille Mauduech

Discover here the DVD L'affaire de l'OJAM (Martinique for Martinicans) by Camille Mauduech

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