Emmanuelle, friend of the Seychelles
Sometimes, the world of cinema upsets the balance of an entire island. When a hundred stagehands arrive on La Digue, it's bound to cause a stir. Hotels are taken by storm; available vehicles are requisitioned... The island takes on the appearance of a studio! François Leterrier, with his erotic film Goodbye Emmanuelle, was the first, in 1976, to enrich the Republic of Seychelles, founded that same year. The superb Creole house of Emmanuelle, on La Digue, became the second home of ex-president René, who invited his friends and illustrious visitors to the archipelago, such as Tony Blair. The rupees began to fall. The producer of Pirates (1986) paid over $300,000 for a few scenes, and Crusoe (1988) cost the Seychelles over a million dollars. The local workforce also benefited, thanks to the construction of an estaminet for the film Pirates, which required the help of eighty workers. For a single scene in Cast Away (2000, starring Tom Hanks), fifty fishing boats were hired. Natives also benefited from extra work: more than sixty took part in the filming of Pirates, and were well paid.
In-house success
Whether inspiring operetta privateers or up-and-coming starlets, the Seychelles are more than ever a poster island, with each film a priori an advertising medium for the Seychelles, which is attempting its own breakthrough into the audiovisual world. Radiotélévision seychelloise (RTS) produces a number of fictional works, while the Centre culturel français and the Mission de la coopération française in Victoria are providing financial support for the production of the first Seychelles TV film, Les Exilés de 1801, directed by Christian Servina and produced by Bernard Dumoulin, Henry Bastienne and Joe Samy. Presented at the 1990 Kreol Festival, the film features major figures in Seychellois history, at a time when the island was either English or French, depending on which ship anchored in the harbor. The work is all the more appreciated because two love stories are woven against this historical backdrop: that of the deportee Boniface and the widow Saint-Jorre, and that of the deportee Quinon and the beautiful Marie Victorine, a freed slave. Thanks to a Seychelles-style script, thirty actors and thirty extras, most of whom are familiar to TV viewers, this premiere was a ratings success, with word of mouth acting as the ratings.
