The Director
Brice Lainé was born in Morocco but he grew up in Togo, West Africa. He first met Séda & the people from CIDAP when he was a young child. Over the years his family developed very strong links with Séda’s family: “When I’m in Baga, I am considered as one of the sons of the community”.
When he was 18, Brice moved to London, UK. After working for a few years in various bars & restaurants, Brice went back to Africa for a year-long solitary backpacking trip across the north & west regions of the continent. That is when he discovered his passion for documentary filmmaking: “Back in those days, my small camcorder became an extension of my personality, and a mean to get closer to people and share their intimacy”.
As he returned to London, Brice went on to complete a TV Broadcasting degree. Soon after graduating, he travelled back to Togo in order to shoot his first independent feature-length documentary: The Dancing Forest. “As soon as I was learning to use a camera, this film started growing within me. I was aching to make it. I had no plan whatsoever for this film; I just needed to make it and tell the extraordinary story of the people from Baga”.
Brice stayed over 3 months shooting this film within the small community of farmers in this remote village in the north of Togo, with no electricity, no running water and a small crew of local villagers to train from scratch. “It was an intense, very organic filmmaking process and a rich human experience”.
A remarkable film
- Caroline Ash, Science magazine, Washington DC