Andidan: Intimate Cinemas of Arlette Pacquit

The first English-language introduction to the documentary cinema of Arlette Pacquit, a revered storyteller of Martinican culture and Afro-Caribbean history

The first publication dedicated to the work of Martinican journalist and filmmaker Arlette Pacquit, Andidan takes the form of a continuous dialogue spanning from 2020 to 2023, between the artist and the poet and translator Nathanael. Through her documentary-style films, Pacquit has given voice to Martinican history in the wake of French colonialism and to the Afro-Caribbean experience at large. Edited to mimic a film, the book is composed of five recorded interviews (transcribed), two written interviews, several texts by Pacquit and an essay by Nathanael, amplified by a filmography, film stills and production shots, many previously unseen. Translated into English from French and Kreyol, the book preserves the intimacy of conversation to discuss subjects ranging from Pacquit's films to her engagement with a transnational politics of solidarity, the French colonial imprint on Martinique and Kreyol as a language of the interior.