The film that highlights how man unwittingly contributes to ecological destruction
“A letter from Ieni” brings messages from Senegal to Greece about the degradation of the marine environment. His movie Manthia Diawararealized as part of the “Back to Earth” program, tells the story of how the inhabitants of a coastal town in Senegal unwittingly contribute to an ecological disaster that takes their lives with them.
The movie “A letter from Yen”, as the English title is, emerged through Manthia Diawara’s conversations with the local community in the city of Senegal, where he also often resides. In recent decades, this traditional settlement of fishermen and farmers has been dominated by coastal erosion and uncontrolled urbanization. Due to the new conditions and overfishing, fishermen are forced to sail far from the coasts, abandoning their dugouts, and adopting motorized boats with large nets made of non-biodegradable threads. In a never-ending vicious cycle, these nets become entangled with purple coral and debris and wash ashore.
The women of the island, who used to cook and sell smoked salted fish, now collect and sell pebbles to the owners of newly built houses. The sand, granite and stones that wealthy homeowners buy to build, decorate and protect their homes from wind and sea salt ironically contribute to the degradation of marine stratification and intensify coastal destruction. In other words, its citizens themselves Senegal they are trapped in a cycle of environmental degradation that leads directly to the degradation of their own lives.
“The letter from Ieni”, which will also be shown in Greek theaters, is essentially a question to the viewer about his connection with nature and the priorities in his choices. THE Hellas, being an island country that identifies with and benefits from the sea, faces similar challenges, for now to a lesser extent. But the challenge is to change its development model in time so as not to find itself in a similar predicament.
The film is a co-production of the Greek cultural organization PCAI, London’s Serpentine gallery of contemporary art and global streaming services platform MUBI. PCAI’s motivation to get involved in the film starts with our own Tilos, since it is the offshoot of the company that implements the circular economy on the island with the fixed goal of zero waste production. Manthia Diawara is a writer, director, cultural theorist, scholar and art historian. He is a professor at New York University and director of the Institute of African American Affairs. As part of the program “Back to Earth”, which is a multi-year project that has invited over 60 leading artists, architects, poets, filmmakers, scientists, thinkers and designers to respond to the environmental crisis, gives its own perspective on the imbalance of the relationship between man and the environment and the “letter” it tells him about every island that wants to ensure a quality future of life. Future unattainable, without the respect and care of nature.
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