The movie skirmishers hits theaters this Wednesday, January 4, tackling a little-known aspect of World War I, the involvement of Senegalese skirmishers in the conflict. Omar Sy plays a father enlisted in the French army in 1917, to join his forcibly recruited 17-year-old son.
In an interview in Parisianpublished this Sunday, the actor evokes the fate of these Senegalese skirmishers, of whom he knew nothing before meeting the director Mathieu Vadepied, ten years ago, on the set ofuntouchable.
“These stories will be swept under the rug”
Happy that the movie ‘Tirailleurs’ “appeases” and goes “towards reconciliation”, the actor who now lives in the United States believes that today things are finally moving. “These stories will be swept under the rug.”
“We must accept the history of others. One story does not contradict the other, it does not cancel it, it does not deny it. It is the sum of all these stories that makes up our common history.”
It is estimated that of the 180,000 Senegalese riflemen who participated in the 14-18 war, 30,000 were killed.
“It is humanity that is sinking”
Asked about a closer war, the one that ravages Ukraine, Omar Sy is surprised that people feel more affected by this conflict than by those taking place in Africa.
“I’m surprised people are so affected. Does that mean that when you’re in Africa you’re less affected?”
“I feel threatened in the same way when he is in Iran, or in Ukraine,” he says. “A war is the sinking of humanity, even when it is on the other side of the world,” she says.
“When it’s far away, we tell ourselves that ‘they’re savages there, we don’t do that anymore.’ Like Covid, at first we said: ‘it’s only the Chinese’”.
“We remember that man is capable of invading, of attacking civilians, children. We have the impression that we have to wait for Ukraine to realize this, ”he adds.
Source: BFM TV
