France / 2021 / 55mins / Documentary / French

With Le Vol du boli (The Flight of the Boli), filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako takes up an unexpected artistic challenge: to stage, at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, an opera based on the history of Africa. English musician Damon Albarn, front man of Blur and the virtual band Gorillaz, composes and conducts the music. The two artists from ostensibly different universes join forces to design a work as powerful as it is engaged.

Charles Castella

A graduate of the Ecole Nationale des Arts Décoratifs, Charles Castella has directed fiction films and documentaries that have won awards at numerous festivals. He has also collaborated on several film scripts and done casting for Nanni Moretti. In 1995, he was in charge of a mission for the centenary of cinema, from which he produced a book of interviews for the newspaper "Le Monde" and portraits of filmmakers for Arte. In 1998, he directed Petite Météorologie, which gave birth in 1999 to his feature film, La vie est dure, nous aussi. He returned to the short format for the series Scalpel. Between 2002 and 2012, Arte commissioned a portrait of Marseille, similar to "The Marches" in Italy. Short films followed: Un souvenir de Claire Coums, La Fille du Loup Maigre and L'institutriste. Then documentaries: La métamorphose du Crabe, with Daniel Pennac; and Eloge du Chardon, about André Glucsmann. Abderrahmane Sissako, a Window on the World, which he directed for Canal +, is a portrait of the Mauritanian filmmaker. In the Forest (2015) focused on Ciaran Hinds. In 2017–2018, he was the artistic director of films dedicated to the National Museum of Qatar, designed by Jean Nouvel. In 2020–21, he wrote the libretto for the opera Le vol du Boli for the Châtelet theater, directed by Abderrahmane Sissako and composed by Damon Albarn. His 2021 film, Un cinéaste à l'opéra, tells the story of the creation of this opera. He has published several albums and books for children and teaches cinema at the University of Paris Diderot. Learn More