Campus Monde

Director’s Statement: N’Tifafa Yannick Edoh Glikou

More and more Western and Asian goods are entering our countries. However, citizens from African countries still face as much difficulty in traveling. The freedom of movement for people and goods is a myth that needs to be denounced. It’s a one-sided and unfair story!

I live in an African country, Ivory Coast, which has been undergoing social and economic trans- formations since 2010. Therefore, the Ivorian economic landscape is undergoing significant changes. Society is obviously affected by this change. The emerging middle class, which dreams of opportunities like any global citizen, unfortunately struggles to obtain visas to Europe or North America.

As a result, private migration advisory firms (whether legal or informal) are emerging in Abidjan as well as in other African cities; because the realities are almost the same across the continent. These agencies help candidates prepare their files for embassies. The proliferation of these agencies in our countries reflects the difficulty of obtaining a visa and also testifies to the existence and flourishing of an economy related to migration.

In relation to these issues, I wanted to make a documentary film.

In Abidjan, the economic capital of Ivory Coast, I met Stéphane Séwa and his partner Ismaël Sylla. They run a migration advisory firm called Campus Monde.

The agency handles visa applications with Western institutions that issue them, allowing Ivorian high school graduates or other nationals from the sub-region to enroll in European or American universities.

The two partners, having been in migration advisory for nearly twenty years, have implemented coaching systems within their firm to give candidates every chance of success during interviews at the US Embassy or Campus France. For them, as well as for me, my questions regarding the issue of African migration towards the West were legitimate and deserved to be visualised.

Choosing to portray this territory on screen aims to highlight the paradox of immigration policies implemented by Western countries in these times of globalisation. Lengthy and sometimes unnecessary administrative hassles are often the causes of clandestine and perilous attempts. And firms like Campus Monde have found the key to solving, to some extent, this problem of Western border closures.

For me, the Campus Monde firm is a school of role-playing and appearances where actors rehearse before the big interview. My camera installed in the firm’s premises during rehearsals and coaching sessions will then account for this paradox of the visa system and the feelings of injustice associated with migration.