Gripping Yarn
NIGHT OF THE KINGS | Fact and fantasy collide in a prison movie like no other.
It was like a kingdom, with kings, with queens. It was a sort of fantastical place,” says Philippe Lacôte, the West African writer-director of Night Of The Kings. He’s recalling an early trip to the Ivory Coast’s notorious La MACA jail, where his mother served time as a political prisoner. “La MACA is an open prison,” Lacôte explains. “There’s a lot of public places where you can mix with prisoners. As a child, it was very strange for me. It was a real treasure of imagination.”
The memory never left Lacôte, but it was a chance encounter with a childhood friend, who also served time in La MACA, that sparked the idea for a feature film. “He told me a real story. He said that in La MACA, there is a ritual to take a prisoner who becomes ‘Roman’ – the guy who would tell stories.”
In La MACA, the inmates run the asylum. Under rule of the Dangôro (Inmate King), one of the ways that order is maintained is through storytelling. Deathly ill, the outgoing Dangôro Blackbeard (Steve Tientcheu) names a brand-new prisoner (Bakary Koné) Roman to give his criminal subjects a night to remember. Roman reluctantly regales them with a true story about the death of renowned outlaw Zama King. But after learning that he will be killed if he finishes his story before morning, Roman embellishes Zama’s tale with a fantastical backstory involving warring kingdoms and shapeshifting sorcerers.
Much like Roman’s yarn, the film is “a hard mix between reality and fiction” according to Lacôte, combining real footage of the 2010-11 Ivorian Crisis with West African folklore. The exterior of the real La MACA features in the film’s opening moments, but it wasn’t practical to shoot inside a working facility, so an intricate set was constructed, working from images of the real prison. Adding further to the authenticity, 25 per cent of the extras cast were former La MACA inmates themselves, lending the film a chaotic energy as they make their feelings about Roman’s story heard loud and clear.
“I didn’t want to have a group who would react very politely,” Lacôte smiles. On the contrary, the inmates enthusiastically convey delight or dissatisfaction at every twist and turn in the tale, even acting out moments in real-time. “In the Ivory Coast, young people have a lot of energy. This way, we created a very alive prison.”
The film has already been released in Lacôte’s home country, where it packed out cinemas for three weeks straight, and has been enthusiastically received on the festival circuit. But it’s the imminent global release that has Lacôte excited. “African cinema is not only for small festivals, for a few people,” the filmmaker nods. “It could have a big audience.” JF
ETA | 23 JULY / NIGHT OF THE KINGS OPENS IN CINEMAS NEXT MONTH.