Just a Movement

Vincent Meessen
2020, Belgium/France, 108 minutes, French with English subtitles

Just A Movement is described as a free take on La Chinoise, the Jean-Luc Godard movie from 1967 set in the French capital. Through a reallocation of time and space, in Dakar, 50 years after Godard’s film, Meesen draws a multi layered portrayal of late West African anti-colonial and anti-imperial revolutionary Omar Blondin Diop. He was the only actual Maoist student who played his own role in La Chinoise.

Part documentary, part essay film, Just a Movement’s main character is no longer alive: Omar Diop was found dead in his prison cell at the age of 27.

Recalling Diop’s political thoughts and activism that led to his imprisonment in Senegal, the film retraces this significant portrait through the memories of his existence recalled in multiple interviews with family members, intellectuals and close collaborators.