‘The Boy with White Skin’, Balinale Winner Qualifies for Oscars

French filmmaker Simon Panay has built a reputation for compassionate, visually arresting storytelling, often shining a light on communities and experiences overlooked by mainstream cinema. His latest film, The Boy With White Skin, continues that commitment with a sensitive and compelling exploration of identity, resilience, and what it means to be seen. As a director who blends documentary instinct with cinematic craft, Panay brings both emotional depth and sharp insight to his subjects. We sat down with him to discuss the film’s origins, the challenges of its production, and the human story at its heart. The Boy With White Skin follows an albino child who, entrusted by his father to a band of gold miners, comes to carry the weight of their dreams on his small shoulders. It was an absolute pleasure to get to interview Simon and learn about the world of artisanal gold mining through him. He is certainly a director with a big career in front of him.

Where did the idea for this film come from?

I’ve been making films about artisanal gold mining since 2015, so it’s a world I’ve spent a lot of time exploring—and one that fascinates me deeply. I started with a short documentary in northern Benin, and then spent five years working on a feature documentary at the Berkowa gold mine in Burkina Faso.

The story in The Boy With White Skin comes from something I witnessed during that project in Burkina Faso: albino children being brought down into underground galleries to sing. I wasn’t allowed to film it as a documentary because the gold miners feared that the presence of a camera would break the “magic.” They truly believed that the children’s songs held magical powers that could attract gold. To them, gold is alive—it’s a beast that must be hunted. And to catch it, you need a kind of mystical force to draw it close enough to take.

Earlier, you mentioned that gold is described in the film as a “beast”—something that must be hunted, tracked, and confronted. I read your director’s statement on your website where you elaborate on this metaphor. How did that idea influence both the visual style and the narrative of the film?

To me, the film exists in a space between reality, legend, and mythology. From an artistic standpoint, I really wanted the approach to reflect that. I see the film as teetering on the edge of the fantastic- the gold itself needed to feel alive through the sound design and the way I filmed the underground galleries. I wanted the spaces to feel inhabited, leaving room for the mythology to breathe within the artistic vision. That was very important to me.

Your lead actor is incredible, where did you find him and what was the casting process like?

We found Boubacar Dembélé through an interesting process. Our casting director in Dakar, Iman Dijonne—who is brilliant—worked closely with the association of albinos in Senegal. This group helped us connect with families across the country who raise albino children.

However, we ran into an unexpected challenge. At the time, Senegal was in the middle of a presidential election, and there’s a widespread, though unverified, belief that candidates gain power by harming albino children. Whether it’s true or not is undocumented, but it’s enough that parents become extremely protective and wary of strangers showing sudden interest in their children. Because of that, casting was tricky.

We were looking for three young albino actors, and Boubacar was the only one who fit our age range. We were incredibly lucky—he was fantastic. We spent a lot of time preparing with him, and he was committed, eager to learn, and determined to do his best. It was a blessing to work with him. He even won the Best Actor award at the Chelsea Film Festival—I called him recently in New York, and he was overjoyed to hear the news.

“Fiction, on the other hand, is completely different—you’re working with a whole team, like conducting an orchestra. The energy, the stress, the dynamics—it’s all very different.“

I believe this is your first fiction film. How was it different approaching this compared to your documentary work? Even though it’s on the kind of same subject matter, how is it different?

It’s funny—working in fiction feels both entirely different and exactly the same as documentary. In my documentaries, the process is very artisanal; it’s often just me, or me and one other person, working over a long period of time. Fiction, on the other hand, is completely different—you’re working with a whole team, like conducting an orchestra. The energy, the stress, the dynamics—it’s all very different.

And yet, at the core, it’s exactly the same. As a director, the questions that matter don’t change: What is your cinematic language? What are you trying to say? What do your choices mean? The language of cinema remains the same; it’s just a matter of different tools and a different way of working. For me, it’s a continuity in my practice, just expressed through a new form.

The film feels incredibly claustrophobic with the scenes in the mine. How did you approach the filmmaking process, especially with the lighting and getting the equipment down there?

Here’s a polished, article-ready version of your response:The biggest challenge for this film was figuring out how to shoot the underground gallery scenes. Filming in a real mine shaft was out of the question—it’s extremely dangerous. I’ve done it for my documentaries, but that was just me alone. Here, with actors and a crew, we simply couldn’t risk anyone’s safety.

Being a short film with a limited budget, building a set from scratch in a studio wasn’t an option either. Our executive producer in Senegal, Astu Productions, did a fantastic job finding a solution. We ended up shooting on Gorée Island, just off Dakar, in a cave by the ocean. The set design team spent over a week transforming it to resemble an underground mine, using reference materials from my documentaries to get it as close to reality as possible. Their work was incredible—they made it safe to film while still feeling authentic.

Interestingly, the cave actually felt quite spacious compared to real mine shafts. In most of those shafts, you can’t even sit upright—you’re hunched over the whole time. Real conditions would have made filming nearly impossible, especially with cameras, lighting, and actors moving around. Lighting was crucial; I wanted it to feel documentary-real. Our director of photography, Simon Gouffault, and I agreed early on: no cheating, no unexplained light sources. Every light had to make sense in the scene—flashlights, small lamps, that’s it.

To make it even more authentic, we incorporated dust. In actual mines, the diggers create enormous clouds of dust, which is both dangerous and strangely beautiful. We imported breathable cinema dust from France to replicate this safely. The flashlights cutting through the dust created a surreal, almost magical effect, and that’s exactly what I wanted—to capture the danger, the intensity, and the strange beauty of working underground.

“What I love about documentary work is the purpose it gives you. It allows you to go deep into a place or a family or a community—sometimes for months.“

What drew you to West Africa and how did you start making films there?

I started making films for a few reasons, but the turning point came in high school. I was already experimenting with independent filmmaking when I attended a festival and met a documentary filmmaker from Burkina Faso, Souleymane Drabo. We became friends, and after I graduated at 18, he invited me to Burkina Faso to co-direct a documentary with him. The subject fascinated me, so I said yes. I worked in my parents’ vineyard to save enough money for a plane ticket and a small camera, and then I went.

It was the first time I had ever travelled, and I fell in love—with Burkina Faso, and with documentary filmmaking. I honestly didn’t expect that. At the time, I associated documentaries with the kind you see on television—interesting, but not what I considered “cinema.” I wanted to make films. It was only later, through film festivals, that I discovered how cinematic documentaries could be.

What I love about documentary work is the purpose it gives you. It allows you to go deep into a place or a family or a community—sometimes for months. You might not “see” a lot in the traditional sense, because you’re rooted in one spot, but you end up understanding that world in a profound way. It’s a kind of travel that isn’t wide, but incredibly deep. When you’re making a documentary, you’re anchored to a place, and that immersion lets you discover everything beneath the surface. It’s a wonderful way to explore.

As for influences, they’re hard to quantify because inspiration comes from everywhere—painting, cinema, literature. But if I had to name one influence on the artistic approach of this film, I’d mention the work of the Mexican filmmakers, particularly Iñárritu. Their use of wide lenses and their closeness to the characters creates an immersive feeling that I really admire. I think that sensibility had an impact on how I approached the visual language of this film.

You said in your director’s statement that the film is about a world that fascinates you as much as it unsettles you. What did you mean by this?

Artisanal gold mining is a world that can be deeply shocking if you only witness it for a day or two. At first glance, you see hardship everywhere—extreme poverty, brutal labour, children as young as seven working on the ground. You see people suffering from severe health problems, people risking everything and often finding nothing. The mines are full of unsettling stories, and it’s impossible not to feel the weight of that.

But once you spend real time there, you start to understand the complexity of this world—its rules, its mythology, the way miners see themselves not as laborers but as soldiers or hunters. There’s a belief system around gold that is almost spiritual. The space they inhabit allows for magic, in a way, and that mixture of harsh reality and myth is endlessly fascinating to me.

I’m constantly learning from this environment. And although the myths and legends shift slightly from country to country, the mining population itself is nomadic. They move from mine to mine across borders, so the culture evolves but remains connected. It’s a world that continues to surprise me, no matter how long I spend in it.

What do you want audiences to take away from this film?

It’s a complicated question, because to me this is a very sensorial film—one that doesn’t explain everything. I think each viewer will interpret it differently, and that’s completely fine with me. I didn’t want to impose a moral stance or say, “this is right” or “this is wrong,” or offer any kind of definitive judgment. I don’t feel that’s my place. My role is to observe, not to condemn or prescribe. That may come from my documentary background, or simply from who I am as a filmmaker.

When you begin a project with a moral conclusion already in place, you risk betraying reality; you start from a position that is already tilted, already limited. I prefer to look, to listen, and to reflect honestly. My goal is to present a sense of reality as I see it, and let viewers form their own judgments.

And I agree—this subject isn’t widely known, especially in Western cultures. If the film opens people’s eyes and encourages them to look deeper into a world they may not have been aware of, then I think that’s meaningful.

What’s next for you? Are you working on anything new?

Yes, I have several projects in the works. I’m developing two feature films—one with the same production companies as The Boy With White Skin. It’s not exactly a feature-length version of the short, because the characters and setting are different, but audiences will definitely recognize a connection between the two. There are thematic bridges linking all of my films, so this new project naturally extends that world.

I’m also developing a comedy set in Senegal about a humanitarian mission. The script is nearly finished and should be completed by the end of the year. And beyond that, I also have a project underway in the United States.

With The Boy With White Skin, Simon Panay has crafted a film that is already making a remarkable imprint on the global festival circuit. The short has earned widespread critical acclaim, securing more than 40 official selections worldwide and collecting an impressive list of awards—including the France Télévisions Grand Prize at Clermont-Ferrand, the Breaking Boundaries Grand Prize at Rhode Island, Best European Short at Flickerfest, and Best Narrative Short at Balinale, an honor that officially qualifies the film for Oscar consideration.

Its accolades span continents: Jury Prizes in France and Italy, Best Director awards in Lille and Cluj, the Singularity Award in Paris, Best Cinematography in Yerevan, and multiple special mentions across Europe. These distinctions speak not only to the film’s artistic strength, but to its resonance with audiences and juries alike.

As Panay continues to expand his body of work through new features and international collaborations, The Boy With White Skin stands as a defining moment—proof of a filmmaker whose blend of realism, myth, and human insight is capturing the world’s attention. And with Oscar qualification already secured, this journey is far from over.

Megan Hilborne (Instagram: meghillbilly) is a freelance writer and film critic based in Portsmouth. She graduated with a degree in Film in 2020 and has continued her study of the medium in her day-to-day life. She takes particular interest in indie, horror, feminist and queer cinema.