Rima Abdul Malak: "I had a magical moment in Angoulême"

This Thursday morning, the first day of the 50th anniversary edition of the international comic book festival, everyone is on deck.

It's the commotion, especially for a good number of Angoumois students who can no longer stand still.

Minister of Culture Rima Abdul Malak, accompanied by Minister of National Education and Youth Pap Ndiaye, is visiting Angoulême.

The young high school and college students were able to show them their comic books, talk about the Culture Pass and award a 2023 college prize, this year awarded to the comic strip

by David Evrad and Jean-David Morvan, telling the true story of the resistant Simone Lagrange (published by Glénat).

Between two visits made at no charge, the minister answered questions from

LE

Rima Abdul MALAK.

- First of all, I remember a tremendous general enthusiasm and a strong enthusiasm for comics.

This year the Angoulême festival celebrates half a century of freedom and creation, of reinventing this medium, which today is fully recognized, and irrigates all the other arts.

We find the comic strip in connection with cinema, music, dance, video games... And we see how it has evolved.

Read alsoRiad Sattouf wins the Grand Prix of the Angoulême Comics Festival: “It was unthinkable!”

For example?

Yesterday I visited the 50th anniversary exhibition of the Festival.

We see there all its evolution, this richness of the 9th art and the international force of the event.

I find that impressive.

The city of Angoulême has become over the years the capital of comic strips and remains so.

Afterwards, when we cross the fifty years of history of the festival, we do not find many women in the prizes and awards.

It jumped out at me yesterday when I saw this great fresco of 50 years.

There were a few of course, including Florence Cestac.

But I hope that in the next fifty years, they will be more and more present.

I would like the profession to accelerate its feminization.

What other lessons have you learned from the various exhibitions you have visited?

I retain an extraordinary diversity, an international force, a freedom of tone and subjects!

I see an art that is in tune with the challenges of society, with history, with an ever broader and renewed imagination.

There, this morning, with Pap Ndiaye, we spent time with children and teenagers from the sixth to the final year.

We have seen how comics also make it possible to discuss difficult subjects such as school bullying, to work on strong periods of our history such as the Second World War, the Resistance and to appropriate them.

With

, this comic strip which received the Prix des collèges, seeing sixth-grade students talking about it, working on each sequence of this comic strip, knowing it almost by heart, it gives hope for the future.

What has stood out to you the most since your arrival?

Last night I saw a magnificent fresco made with 35,000 candles on the forecourt of the International City of Comics and Images.

This reconstitution in candles of the poster of the first Angoulême festival, signed Hugo Pratt was a sublime moment which will have made it possible to federate the generations.

It was something almost spiritual, a particular vibration.

Like a moment apart?

Well, night has started to fall.

There were a few snowflakes, and I witnessed a moment of pure magic.

So there you have it, this festival is also about moments of magic and times of transmission.

For me, it is an essential trip that we are making together with the Minister of Education Pap Ndiaye, to show the importance of drawing, comics, in artistic education, the education of children, young people and building citizens.

Comics contribute to critical thinking.

It allows you to sharpen your view of history, of yourself, of the world around you.

And above all, it promotes openness to others, which is not so common these days!

SEE

- "I really didn't expect it": Riad Sattouf crowned at the Angoulême Festival