Soldier, psychiatrist, philosopher... who was Frantz Fanon? A new film by director Jean-Claude Barny seeks to answer that question in a year that marks a century since the birth of one of the most influential figures in 20th-century anti-colonial thought.
Barny, who hails from Guadeloupe, said it was important to understand Fanon's Caribbean culture, his Western culture, his African culture, but also to view him as a man "capable of absorbing all cultures" – and of detaching himself from them too.
"I started reading everything I could get my hands on and looking at everything I could about Fanon. I had a kind of [binge] of curiosity, of information, of pedagogy, to be able to understand what I was going to do with it and why," Barny told RFI, ahead of the film's release in French cinemas on 2 April.
Born on 20 July 1925, in Fort-de-France, Martinique, Fanon led a colourful life. He was a soldier in the French liberation army fighting the Nazis, then a young doctor in training in Lyon in the 1950s.
His exposure to racism in these environments became the basis for his first major book, Black Skin, White Masks, published in 1952.
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In his film Fanon, which took 10 years to make, Barny chose to explore a critical chapter of Fanon's life; his time as head psychiatrist in Blida, a small town in Algeria 45km south-west of Algiers, between 1953 and 1960.
He arrived with his wife Josie at a time when the North African nation was still France's largest colony, on the verge of revolution and what would become the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962).
Systems of oppression
Fanon had already been sent to Morocco and Algeria during the Second World War, before being sent to Provence in 1944. But it was when he returned to Algeria, almost a decade later, that he discovered how the population had been affected by colonisation.
Barny says the film reflects how Fanon viewed Algeria at this time – through the eyes of an outsider, a middle class doctor, and as a black man facing another system of alienation and oppression.
Barny realised through his research that Fanon's experiences at Blida were transformational, which was crucial for bringing his personality to the big screen.
"My challenge was that people like Fanon. So, to make people like him, he had to be attractive, he had to have all the ingredients that make a character in an attractive film. People need to know there will be an adventure. And Fanon's adventure, in my opinion, began with the arrival in Blida," he said.
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The film shows how Fanon changed conditions at the hospital, which was almost prison-like at the time, and introduced revolutionary treatment through talking therapy, group activities and outdoor meetings.
It also shows how Fanon continued writing, even while working long days, and his efforts to help the National Liberation Front (FLN) in their fight against French rule.
"He writes very, very well," Barny said. "He's very precise with his words. He has a poetic talent. So how do you put that into images, I asked myself. Our approach was to show that through, not ideas, but the facts and events of his life."
Public discourse
Barny was inspired by various genres of cinema, from Westerns to action and adventure films.
Fanon was shot in Tunisia, and stars Alexandre Bouyer as Fanon, Deborah François as his wife and Arthur Dupont his closest intern. Most of the rest of the cast is made up of Algerian actors.
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Barny chose to use visual metaphors to represent the presence of Martinique, Fanon's birthplace. The film will be released in Martinique on 5 April, and the team hopes it will travel further afield too, to mark Fanon's centenary and bring him back into the public discourse.
"This film is in huge demand abroad," Barny said. "Because Fanon was a character who knew how to take risks for the world. So the world is waiting and asking for more about him. He belongs to the whole of humanity today."
