Charlotte Schioler – the writer, director, producer and star of the multiple-award winning film ‘Maoussi’ – is very fond of mice; and has a history of smuggling mice back-and-forth between New York (where she’s worked) and Paris (where she lives).
“Alas,” she sighs, when I meet her at the Spinner’s Web café on a sunny Sunday afternoon, “one mouse is formally buried in Central Park after recently getting accidentally strangled in my bra…”
“What was a mouse doing in your brasserie, dear Charlotte?”
“It was hiding from ICE!” Charlotte, who has a slow smile and infectious laugh, says (the Immigration and Customs’ Enforcement – a federal agency whose mission is to enforce immigration laws, investigate transnational crimes, and protect national security in the USA). But we are not here to discuss mice, but a mouse called ‘MAOUSSI’ – and a film.
‘MAOUSSI,’ the 2023 film that just had its premier at the Alliance Francaise recently, and the film’s premise is that of a Danish dancer living in Paris (Babette, played by Charlotte herself) who takes in an African percussionist Edo (played by Moustapha Mbengue) at the behest of her dance choreographer Ella Wolliaston (who plays herself in the film, and whom Charlotte credits with changing her life).
Little does Babette know that the percussionist, a Lari Congolese, has no intention of returning to the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) once his Parisian music gig is over, for the simple reason that the Congo is at war, and his life is under threat. The musician’s plan is the usual one for many an African in this situation – get asylum in France, and failing that, marry a French citizen to avoid deportation.
‘MAOUSSI’ navigates the difficulties of life in modern Europe, the complexities of love across different cultures and explores the themes of identity and migration; yet Charlotte is clever enough to invest the two main characters with equal agency.
This is different from how the African characters were simple sketches in her immortal great grand aunt Karen Blixen’s book “Out of Africa” – but we agree one cannot judge a work from a century ago with ‘2025’ judgmental lenses, and Charlotte is a strong proponent of the separation of the artist from their work, “otherwise where does it all stop?” We'll try to accommodate every emotional fragility and not offend any sensibility in our art, “then every film will be a ruin…”
MAOUSSI is a masterful triumph of comedic suspense, dance, music and a light humour that had the audience laughing out-loud at certain moments – including the new Kenya Film Commission Director Sudi Wandabusi, whom I was seated next to at the premier at the Alliance Francaise auditorium.
The film sensitively explores the themes of love, marriage, and survival, highlighting the dilemma between necessity and romantic love, and bringing to the core that philosophical question: ‘What is love? Whom do we choose to love? Why them? Why not (me)?’
The inspiration for the film, as Charlotte Schioler says, is from a similar situation she had in her life a long time ago, a Kongolo movie muse, and ‘MAOUSSI’ amuses, bemuses and ultimately moves audiences – which would explain why her debut film has garnered international acclaim across the world: the Shanghai International Film Festival, Award of Excellence at NYC Winter Film Awards, Best Narrative Feature Film at London Cineverse and the ITFF in Rome, among others.
Drawing inspiration from her own ancestry and personal history of being an outsider, Charlotte weaves sensitive perspectives into the narrative. MAOUSSI is also a “clin d’oeil” to her famous great aunt, the writer Blixen, whose life in Kenya inspired Sydney Pollack’s movie Out Of Africa and ‘Babette’ references Blixen’s renowned short story, Babette’s Feast.
‘MAOUSSI’ is a mouse that was trained – alongside eight other ‘doubles’ – by an animal trainer (who had worked with lions, tigers and other big animals) – but also made a successful debut training mice, which is very nice for the film’s spice. Charlotte also explored other challenges during the making of ‘MAOUSSI,’ like “making love” when you are seated on a hidden wooden board to separate actors: “Having ‘sex’ on screen is amongst the least sexy scenes you can have in cinema!”
But the really hard work was in the decade it took Charlotte, starting in 2013, to get the film from conception to release, even as she takes it to the world.
“It took me three years to come up with the final script, as I was still working as an actor and dancer in other projects (survival) and another three years to find the perfect co-star to play Edo.” This eventually ended up being Moustapha.
This was because Afro-French actors didn’t have the accent (nor the inclination to play at immigrant) as almost all of them are second/third generation Frenchmen.
Listening to Charlotte, with her incessant cheerful attitude, even as the afternoon to evening turns, and we move the interview to the Zen Gardens, one understands that those 75 minutes of art to delight an audience on screen represent a decade of blood, sweat, tears (and, in the case of 2020, pandemic).
The story of how ‘MAOUSSI’ even got to get a Kenyan premier is movie-like itself.
Charlotte says she had been intending to go to India for a “panchakarma” (Ayurvedic detox) since mid-2024, but she had not been able to find the time. “After a bad bout of covid-19 in December 2024, I really needed a break...and my Bangladeshi producer friend told me about an Anu Surty who was doing detox cures in Kenya. I decided to go to Kenya for two weeks, which turned into 24 days.”
Charlotte has a freaky habit of landing somewhere, and then staying on. As a teenager, she hiked from Denmark to France one holiday, decided to sleep overnight at some boarding school in France (to escape the creepy guy who had given her a lift), and ended up doing her senior year of high school there.
She once went to America for a show, stayed on for three years until she got a work permit, then stayed on in the USA for seven more years. Anyway -
The film’s publicist Bianca Ross is still a force pushing the film all the way from across Melbourne, Australia; and Charlotte herself is still knocking on the doors of distributors and reviewers, including both the cineasts (and also a few charlatans) at Cannes. “Maoussi” is also expected to feature at our own Kalasha Film Festival. “MAOUSSI,” doesn’t just have eight doubles; it is the real mouse with nine lives.
‘Zen’ is a Japanese school of thought that emphasizes intuition and meditation – and although Charlotte Schioler is more about Gabonese bwiti (chi) and Ndeupp priests – she is very Zen as we leave the Zen Gardens, as the last lights go out …
But not on her film, which is currently being adapted as a six-part French TV-series.
“I was supposed to stay at a hotel where specific detox (super delicious by the way) food would be delivered to me and then I would be picked up for treatments at Anu’s clinic every day. As it turned out, due to recent covid infection, my oxygen levels dropped far too low on the flight and I was hospitalised upon my arrival at Aga Khan hospital. I had to call Anu to cancel my treatment for the first day. She immediately came to the hospital and stayed with me until they released me with the order to not be by myself; so, Anu took me to her home and I ended up staying there for 24 days; and I feel as if I have become part of the family. I cannot tell how much love and care they gave me.”
It was while she was there this past December that people that she was introduced to started asking where they could see ‘Maoussi,’ and it was through one of their friends that she gots introduced to Harsita Waters of Alliance Francaise, “and shortly after my return to Paris, she asked me if they could screen my film during the month of Francophonie. So, if it had not been for Anu, ‘Maoussi’ would more likely have ended up on the Ganges River in India...”
