"The dead are not dead" is the theme of an exhibition by Moroccan photographer Malik Nejmi, which is taking place in Rabat, indicates a statement from Kulte Gallery & Editions. It is a video around the issue of Senegalese migration which is inspired by the assassination of two street vendors in Florence (Italy), Mor Diop and Samb Modou, by a fascist extremist affiliated with the Casapound party in December 2011.

This video, which clearly claims the idea of a sequence thought of as a social tableau, attempts to "step out of the field of contemporary art to propose a space for dialogue and culture animated by the desire to denounce the processes of exclusion of migrants in the city", underlines the statement.

During his residency at the Villa Medici in Italy in 2013-2014, Nejmi was fascinated by the courage of the street vendors who travel through Europe and got closer to the Senegalese community established in Italy, notes the same source.

"The song of immigration is a perpetual poem, a cycle of life and death, where those who try to cross the Mediterranean cross paths with those who return from it and go back to the nourishing land. We are all guided by the voices of a permanent exile", believes this artist, quoted by the statement.

In 2012, while he was scouting at the time of the official commemorations, Malik Nejmi met the Senegalese community in this moment of reflection. "A sort of living tableau, a group of men gathered in a mosque were trying to organise themselves for a collective prayer, a prayer for the dead as is done in any Muslim context", he says.

The video restores this time of prayer in a single sequence shot. This moment thus filmed reveals the content of the violence that erupted on this community and the close links that are established between the religious and the political in their migratory journey.

"Authorising a camera to film this intimate moment (a complete reading of the Quran) is a way to prolong the struggle: fighting to exist on a host land poses formidable existential questions. Should one return to the country? Should one stay in a "hostile" land? Questions that also necessarily question the position of the artist in civil society, in the city, questions of commitment inherent in the fields of cinema and contemporary art. "You can film if your film helps us to fight", believes the statement.

The title of the film is inspired by the collection "Les Souffles" (Leurres et lueurs, 1960) by the great Senegalese poet Birago Diop, and thus addresses the place of language, words, and the very idea of fighting with words translated into the language of the native, which then sound like an anti-fascist political slogan.