Listwar Sesel – Sa Lot Versyon

(The History of Seychelles – The Other Version)

Listwar Sesel is a ground breaking 4 part historical documentary, all in Creole, delivering the latest knowledge from Seychellois experts across fields of history and culture. It was produced by Telesesel and aired in 2023.

I had the honour to work as historical consultant, collaborating with researcher Stephanie Remie in telling untold stories of the islands. My role involved providing contexts, narratives, information, sources and analysis.

One of my most important aims when consulting for the documentary was to tell the story of the true first known human settlers of the Seychelles. These were five maroons who escaped French enslavers during a Mauritian expedition to the Seychelles two years before the arrival of the Mauritian ship Thelemaque carrying the 15 French, 5 Indian and 8 Malagasy or African people who are mistakenly thought of as the first settlers. The 5 maroons who were the true first settlers had been omitted from almost every historical work on the settlement or general history of the Seychelles.

My book Maroons of the Seychelles sought to remedy that, telling their story as fully as possible and producers of the documentary used it as reference to create the first ever TV re-enactment of the real first settlement.

My other role as historical consultant was to advise on questions like what clothes people would have worn, what languages they would have spoken and anything else the writers/directors needed to know before creating re-enactments.

I also had the pleasure of pointing the writers to the brilliant works and minds of my inspirations and colleagues – Seychellois researchers from across the cultural fields, from musicologists, to historians to linguists and more.