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  • L'Arbre sans fruit / The Fruitless Tree by Aïcha Elhadj MackyWoman among Mothers
  • Olivier Barlet
    Translated by Beti Ellerson

The jury of the Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) in June 2016 granted its documentary prize to L'Arbre sans fruit / The Fruitless Tree, by Aïcha Elhadj Macky, coproduced by Sani Magori, who won the same award in 2009 with Pour le meilleur et pour l'oignon / For the Best and for the Onion. Both of these films, which come from the training and production circuit Africadoc, are part of the Lumières du Monde Collection.

Macky was only five years old when her mother died after childbirth. It is this trauma that Macky, who is married without children, reconstructs in this film about infertility. She starts with childbirth: the calm and the advice of the midwife, the fatigue of the mother, the arrival of the child. She then moves to a spoken letter that refers back to the event: "Dear Mother, behind the camera, I tremble throughout my body," before concluding, "In my sleepless nights, your spirit guides my steps."

This film speaks to us, as it knows how to build on the emotion of this personal implication, as an interrogation of society, a question posed to all of us. The task was not easy, as the subject remains taboo in Nigerien society. How to convince one to share such an experience? How to film a face that does not want to be seen? Macky accomplishes this very well. With her small technical team, she has an eye for detail, the lighting, the mood. The camera and the editing are of great tenderness. The testimonials are subtle conversations where she displays the quality of attentiveness, glances, and silences. It was necessary to have this level of sensitivity in order to show these very delicate issues in an environment where a woman does not have the right to go uncovered, and where sex itself remains a taboo subject.

Macky's first film, Savoir faire le lit / To Know How to Make the Bed, described how the knowledge of the art of seduction and sexual intercourse was transmitted between mother and daughter. She was warned of the [End Page 267] repercussions she would face in her country Niger, including scandal, repudiation, and banishment, but it didn't happen. The film was well received, screened in schools and universities, and was the catalyst for much debate—evidence that African societies are not static.

The Fruitless Tree questions the belief that one must one have a child in order to accomplish her personal life as a woman. For Macky, who is labeled as a "tree without fruit," it was with this film that she could assert herself above all as a woman among mothers—a place that requires courage and determination. Her stance, however, will give courage to the many women confronted with men's indifference towards their suffering, the suspicion and rejection of husbands and their families, the taking of co-wives to ensure fertility, and the rip-offs of some marabouts. Women's rights are perceptively discussed, most notably through the comments of an imam at the Islamic school who encourages pursuing a divorce if marriage does not lead to the woman's enjoyment and pleasure in the same way it does for the man, and to file a grievance to the religious leaders in the case of refusal.

This is the taboo topic that Macky confronts head-on; tackling the silent contempt and suffering. She is not satisfied to only denounce the plight of women who are rejected because of infertility; she also demands the ability to control one's own destiny as a woman. This film, hence, is an attempt to not only correct these practices, but also and above all acting through the positioning of agent, to tell through word and image, and in this way to speak to the world and contribute to change.

Translation by Beti Ellerson
In partnership with African Women in Cinema [End Page 268]

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