Aboard a giant slave ship in an abandoned Citroën factory, the history of the West Indies is traced through several centuries of French oppression. The ship becomes a stage for the people to tell stories via song and dance—from their enslavement to their displacement in Metropolitan France.

Taken during the filming of "West Indies," this film shows the making of the monumental set in the middle of the former Citroën factory, as well as backstage activity and rehearsals on the set.

For 'Et les chiens se taisaient' Maldoror adapted a piece of theatre by the poet and politician Aimé Césaire (1913–2008), about a rebel who becomes profoundly aware of his otherness when condemned to death. His existential dialogue with his mother reverberates around the African sculptures on display at the Musée de l'Homme, a Parisian museum full of colonial plunder whose director was the Surrealist anthropologist Michel Leiris.

An educated native of Mauritania tries to find work in Paris but encounters difficulty because of his race.

A French TV movie directed by Jean-Christophe Averty , broadcast on December 24, 1964 . The Old Testament set in Louisiana with an all black cast.