Orange with Media Services, published on Sunday, January 01, 2023 at 9:04 p.m.
Omar Sy, the third favorite personality of the French and hero of the film Tirailleurs, is surprised in Le Parisien that the French feel more affected by the war in Ukraine than by other more distant conflicts.
He’s there third favorite personality of the French, but also the hero of the film Tirailleurs which will be released in theaters on Wednesday January 4th. Omar Sy, who has already made himself known for his positions concerning the Muslim Rohingya minority, speaks on Sunday January 1 in The Parisian about the war in Ukraine.
He is surprised that the French feel more affected by the war in Ukraine than by other conflicts taking place on other continents.
“I’m surprised that people are so affected. Does that mean that when it’s in Africa you are less affected?” launches the actor. “Me, I feel threatened in the same way when it is in Iran, or in Ukraine”, he assures. “A war is humanity sinking, even when it’s on the other side of the world,” he says.
“When it’s far away, we say to ourselves that over there, they are savages, we don’t do that anymore. Like the Covid, at the start, we said: it’s only the Chinese'”. “We remember that the man is capable of invading, of attacking civilians, children. We have the impression that we have to wait for Ukraine to realize this,” he adds.
“You have to accept the story of others”
Omar Sy is the hero of a film about Senegalese skirmishers during World War I. Shot partly in Senegal but also in the Ardennes, the film follows the fate of a father, Bakary (Omar Sy) and his son Thierno (Alassane Diong), who are torn from their family and find themselves in the trenches of the Great War, in tricolor uniform.
If “Tirailleurs” is first and foremost a father’s fight to save his son from war, the political significance of this film is unequivocal. “The idea is to question. To question the historical relationship of France to its former colonies, what do we say about that today, do we know what we have done?”, had declared to theAFP director Mathieu Vadepied at the Cannes Film Festival.
If he denies having made a “frontally political” film, he hopes that it will clean up the “cavities” of the national narrative. And above all, he specifies, “we don’t act as if it doesn’t exist, we don’t move without. These stories have to be told, passed on. Everyone has to know them”.
The skirmishers were more than 200,000 to fight during the First World War, 150,000 for the Second, 60,000 in Indochina. This is one of the first times their story has been brought to the screen.
Omar Sy who is co-producer of the film says he is happy in The Parisian that the film ‘Tirailleurs’ “appeases” and goes “towards reconciliation”. The actor who now lives in the United States believes that today things are finally moving. “These stories will come out from under the rug.”
“We must accept the story of others. One story does not contradict the other, does not cancel it, does not deny it. It is the addition of all these stories that makes our common history”.