Jimmy Cliff sets southern France alight

Thursday 07 August 2008

The Jamaican star of ska, reggae and ragga took the crowd by storm at the “Nuits du Sud” festival in the southern French town of Vence. We met the author of “Reggae Night” to talk about his current filmmaking project.

The small town of Vence, located in France’s picturesque Alpes-Maritimes, is best known for its music festival. Every summer for the past eleven years, the town has hosted an impressive array of musicians from all over the world. Orishas, Cesaria Evora, Social Club and Johnny Clegg are just a few of the more than two hundred musicians to have graced the stage at the “Nuits du Sud”. And as director Téo Saavadra is pleased to note, the crowd of followers is getting larger by the year.

This year, some 50,000 visitors flocked to Vence, eager to experience the festival’s extraordinary variety. From Salif Keita’s Malian soul to Ramiro Musotto’s Argentine percussions and Goran Bregovic’s gypsy brass band, the most diverse musical styles have found a home here in the south of France.

Among the legends to have delighted local fans is Jimmy Cliff, who played a number of the great hits that marked a distinctive career begun at the age of 14. These include “Reggae Night”, the pop single that sanctioned his international fame, “Many Rivers to cross”, from the soundtrack of Perry Henzell’s classic “The Harder They Come”, “Wild World”, a cover of the original song by Cat Stevens, with whom Jimmy Cliff worked in the past, as well as the Lion King’s “Hakuna Matata”.

A well-rounded artist and one-time film actor, Jimmy Cliff revealed his current projects to FRANCE 24. “I’m working on a film whose main character is a rebel. The character truly existed in Jamaica; his spirit is sombre and has an impact on the people, particularly the young. In the film we want to make him evolve, to turn him into a positive character. We’re trying to develop the scenario so that the movie can come to life, immersed in a musical universe”.

While waiting for the film’s release, the crowd at the “Nuits du Sud” festival was more than happy to dance to the tune of Jimmy Cliff’s djembe drums.