In Skirmishers Cast by Mathieu Vadepid, the actor plays a Senegalese father who enlists in the French army in 1917 to join his forcibly conscripted son. Co-producer of the film, he returned Madame Figaro about his character, the concept of transmission and the role of a father.
It’s “a film about transmission,” says Omar Sy, at the microphone Madame Figaro. Skirmishers tells the story of Bacary Diallo (Omar Sy), a Senegalese father who joins the French army in 1917 to join his son, Tierno (Alassane Diong), who is drafted to fight in the trenches of World War I. Bacary then has to deal with a grown son, “this rocking is pretty brutal,” the actor notes to our mic.
Filmed in part at Fort Dumont, site of the Battle of Verdun, the film follows the relatively unknown history of the Senegalese Skirmish Corps. Under the colonial empire established by Napoleon III in 1857, they would serve in the French army. An estimated 30,000 of them lost their lives on French soil between 1914 and 1918.
“We don’t understand each other anymore.”
Beyond the historical aspect, the actor singles out the father-son tandem here. “My father made me understand that this transfer does not concern only me and him, finally. It’s a link in a big, big chain,” he continues. “Do you want to be the link that breaks?” he asks again, almost in an ontological question. Also evoking her family experience, particularly with her nephews, whom she raised, she continues: I am no longer the father, I am an equal.” Like a movie callback.
Skirmishers by Mathieu Vadepied hits theaters this Wednesday, January 4th.
In the video, a funny fight between the accomplice Omar Sy and Kerry Washington in the boxing ring
Source: Le Figaro
