I saw many young people who want to make films and really believe in cinema—it is not a reproach—but my concern is that sometimes they are very weak in literature. There is a problem with culture in general, and first with their own culture, which they have ignored to an extent that they have not been brought up in a purely African culture, but neither a European one. These young people are in a state of redemption (I dare not say “unrootedness”). If they want to close the loop and return to something, a synthesis, they need knowledge broader than others… A deeper knowledge of these two cultures allows them to end the tearing apart.

[From Recherche, Padagogie et Culture, no. 37 (1978). Translated from the French by Anna Rimpl and Annett Busch.]