Simon Moutaïrou - Villa Albertine

Cinema

New Orleans

“Ghosts are the memories of the earth. They outlive us. They remember. And because they travel through time, they can undo what has been done.”

Who?

I am a Franco-Beninese writer-director. My journey has been shaped at the crossroads of two imaginaries: contemporary urgencies and African memories. From an early age, cinema imposed itself on me as a way to open doors to buried worlds.

My first feature film honors the “marrons,” the men and women who, during the era of slavery, escaped the plantations and broke their chains. It is a story of pride and resistance. In the continuation of my work, I intend to deepen this path by continuing to shape monuments to the forgotten figures of History, to honor their legacies, and to pass their fire on to contemporary youth.

My second feature seeks to draw from the source of Vodou — a spirituality that is deeply meaningful to me, as it was born in Benin, my paternal family’s homeland. I want to follow it across the Atlantic. New Orleans, with its Creole and mystical soul, was an obvious destination. My writing residency will allow me to go in search of the city’s spirits and ghosts, to gather its esoteric secrets, and to weave connections between Beninese and Louisianan rites in order to craft a new transatlantic narrative.

Simon Moutaïrou is a Franco-Beninese screenwriter and director. He co-wrote the films Goliath and Boîte Noire (nominated for the 2022 César Award for Best Original Screenplay). In 2023, he directed Ni Chaînes Ni Maîtres, his first feature film as writer-director, after receiving the CNC’s advance on receipts grant. The two lead actors, Ibrahima Mbaye and Anna Thiandoum, were selected for the 2025 César Revelations list.

What?

My project takes place in New Orleans, moving between past and present.

At the end of the 18th century, Théodore, a French settler who came to America seeking fortune, discovers gold in a river deep in the forest. To seize it, he commits the irreparable and becomes rich.

In the present day, Marie, a principal at a public high school, is raising her 15-year-old son Joshua on her own. Joshua was born with a malformation linked to pollution. They live in a neighborhood once occupied by factories, a zone abandoned for decades and left to decay, poisoned by centuries of industrial exploitation.

Marie finds herself thinking that all her efforts, both at the school and with the victims’ association where she volunteers, are useless. That the game is rigged. The city’s decision-makers, like those of the country, don’t care about the poor. The decontamination of the area was only partial because it was deemed “too expensive.” The neighborhood rehabilitation plan keeps being postponed.

During the burial of a time capsule in the school garden, artifacts are unearthed. Marie looks at them, captivated. She doesn’t know they were buried in Théodore’s time. This discovery opens a rift between eras. The narrative then alternates between colonial and contemporary America, between Théodore and Marie.

Ghosts are the memories of the earth. They outlive us. They remember. And because they travel through time, they can undo what has been done.

Where?

At the beginning of 2025, while I was in Benin for the annual Vodou festival, I found myself at a table with three people from New Orleans: Asali Devan, an activist; Elder Reggie Green, a Vodou priest; and Rosine Pema, the city’s Director of International Affairs. That lunch led to one of the most exciting and inspiring conversations of my life. I took it as a sign from “FA” (a Vodou word meaning Destiny). I therefore chose to continue down this path.

In New Orleans, my goal is to foster as many meaningful encounters as possible within the Vodou world, far from touristy and folkloric clichés.

Key figures and symbolic places of the city
Practitioners, priests, temples, convents, places of worship, sites of memory
“African” Vodou + Beninese and Nigerian immigrant communities
“Creole” Vodou + Creole community
“Haitian” Vodou + Haitian community
Academics, historians, and anthropologists from NOLA who can bring to light, through my perspective, the role of Vodou in the city’s past and present.

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