Arlit, deuxième Paris, a 2005 documentary by award-winning filmmaker Idrissou Mora-Kpai from Benin, invites us into the derelict town of Arlit that was once regarded as the “Second Paris”. The testimonies of different inhabitants of the city suck us into a world without an exit, despite the clear border.

As a mining city, most of the city’s residents rely on the mines for a living. European corporations, mostly from France, are extracting uranium from the city, leaving the population vulnerable to illnesses affiliated with radiation from the mines. The residents are concerned about the situation, as their city’s death rate is rising without much support from the corporations or the government. And so, they remain helpless as they wait for a better tomorrow.

We are introduced to the town with a wide shot of a border checkpoint, true to the city’s reputation as a transit to Algeria and beyond. It was once a lively city, with frequent international flights, good nightlife, and employment for its diverse population. These are the images drawn for us by the subjects of the film, who recall with much agony the joyous life that Arlit once promised. In the 1970s, uranium mines flourished here, employing over 25,000 workers from around the world, including Europeans. Niger was and remains an important asset for France for its nuclear power. But with the collapse of uranium prices paired with political turmoil in the region because of the Tuareg rebellion against the central government in Niamey, Arlit ceased to be the commercial city it once was. Many were forced to flee, including the Europeans who did not have any use for the city anymore, leaving behind the extraction sites with their machinery and debris. In no time, Arlit became a mere shadow of itself.

Through the compelling cinematography and artistic choices that Idrissou makes, we are inclined to consider the systemic impact of environmental racism. Idrissou involves very intimate and often discomforting scenes of people in the city, idling or doing minor manual work to support themselves. The slow and long pans around the city gives us a sense of its geography, allowing us to infer the scale of its toxicity, but only to a point. The camera is almost always circling around the same spaces, depicting the timelessness of people’s experiences, as well as the suffocation of its atmosphere. On some occasions, Idrissou’s camera remains still, forcing both his subjects and the audience to engage with the horror of the scene. One such moment focuses on a woman working at a bar without any drinks to serve. She leans helplessly on the counter with eyes that never meet our gaze. She is a widow and the mother of two children from Togo and has lived in the city for two years. Like most people, she is waiting for a better tomorrow or a miracle to provide her the means to get back to her children. When Idrissou asks her how she gets by, she says “through other means” while looking at him, then remains silent. And with that, she leaves us to imagine the unspoken. The slow and silent violence that Arlit is dying from is only a grain in the sand, since Africa has generally been subject to various forms of extractive colonialism, including the familiar cases of the Democratic Republic of Congo for its minerals and stones and Nigeria for its oil. The story of Arlit lays bare the effects of these practices, reminding us that colonialism has never been a one-time historical event and that the descendants of colonial powers have to understand their role in the continued violence against Africans.

Idrissou’s documentary was the first in the list of films to be shown throughout this semester by the Essential Cinema program in the Arts Center. After the screening, we skyped Idrissou in to discuss the complexity of migration in the post-colonial African context and the impact of the African gaze on contemporary issues. Idrissou mentioned that he intended to tell the people’s story in the most authentic way possible — through narration, local music and the slow pace of its editing. And he achieved these intentions quite successfully.

The gist of the conversation for me was realizing that the continued migration of Africans within Africa is largely left out of contemporary discussions. As mentioned by Idrissou, 75 percent of Africans that migrate do so within the continent. Although the film was made in 2005, the conversation is timeless. The renowned filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako also explored the asymmetric relationship between France and the Francophone countries in West Africa through his 1999 film, La Vie Sur Terre (which translates to ”Life of Earth”). Sissako features a dusty village in Mali that remains at a standstill in its development and technological advancement as Paris celebrates a new millennium. The villagers are bound to the confines of their village, circling, idling and waiting for a better tomorrow, just as in Arlit. Mati Diop’s 2018 film, Atlantiques also visits the subject of African migration, this time by literally embedding the dream of a faraway land into the film. And it is frightening.

These parallel perspectives on post-colonial Africa are of paramount importance to our understanding of environmental racism and extractive colonialism and we are grateful to Essential Cinema for sharing this story and to Professor Idrissou for his time.

Dear Descendants, do keep an eye out for this column, for this is only the beginning of an incessant journey.