There is a preview scheduled for a new film by Gilles Élie-Dit-Cosaque La liste des courses [The Shopping List] tonight, May 1, 2011, at 6:00pm in the Frantz Fanon Room at the Atrium, in Fort-de-France, Martinique.

Description: On February 5, 2009, after French Guiana and Guadeloupe, a strike movement was forming in Martinique; it was unprecedented both due to its duration and its magnitude. The establishment of a list of products considered of first necessity, and for which a 20% price decrease was requested, emerged rapidly as one of the key claims of this conflict. A desire for equality of rights . . . to consume? Beyond mundane considerations on the cost of living, the history of this list raises real identity issues. Because today, more than ever, the sum of what “I consume” says much about what we are. So, between the lines of The Shopping List, we can “read” Caribbean society; we can glimpse its evolution and its aspirations, with lightness and humor through the eyes of “consomm’acteurs” [agents of consumption] that lived through the event.

Gilles Élie-Dit-Cosaque is a producer and artistic director. He is the director of the 2008 the critically acclaimed and award-winning film Zétwal, and the documentaries Outre-mer Outre-tombe (2006) and Ma Grena’ et moi (2004).

For original post (in French), see http://www.gensdelacaraibe.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4632&Itemid=54

For more on the director, see http://www.lamaisongarage.fr/pagesgedc/gilles_elie-dit-cosaque.html

For a fascinating preview of Ma Grena’ et moi (I loved it!), see http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x31gdr_extrait-de-ma-grena-et-moi-de-gille_creation