“Boîte Noire (Black Box) is an experimental documentary project exploring genealogy and history through an investigation between France and Cameroon during the colonial period. The project consists of a experimental documentary film with Super 8 family footage, a photographic series and audio recordings.

I couldn’t save my father, but before the bailiffs arrived, I saved what I wanted to keep : photos, films, cameras, and some of his vinyl records. Then he passed away and I was left with thousand of images, a few stories, some vague memories and an unclear family tree.

My father François was born in Maroua in the north of Cameroon in 1949 during the colonial era. My grandfather René was a veterinary inspector there, and my grandmother Marcelle was a sport teacher. They were both employed by France and the French Department of Colonies. My aunt Martine was born in 1951, and the four of them lived in Garoua in a house in the middle of the bush for 10 years. My grandfather died of typhus in Yaoundé on the night of May 26-27 1959, at the age of 37, but everyone seems to believe he was murdered. My grandmother died in 1967 of a stroke at the age of 43 in the middle of the night, following the aftermath of a car accident that had occurred a few years earlier. In total, she had three car accidents, including one post-mortem. My father and my aunt, who were still minors, found themselves orphaned and asked to be emancipated. And one night in January 1981, while my father was sleeping in the next room, my aunt jumped out of the 10th-floor window. She was 30 years old. My father died in a nursing home at the age of 69, shortly after I decided to cut ties with him.

Then I decided to investigate.”

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