Oumarou Ganda
Birth : 1935-01-01, Niamey, Niger
Death : 1981-01-01
History
Oumarou Ganda (1935 – 1 January 1981) was a Nigerien director and actor who helped bring African cinema to international attention in the 1960s and 1970s.
Ganda was born in Niamey, the capital of Niger, in 1935 and was of Djerma ethnicity. He completed his primary studies in Niamey and at the age of 16 joined the French Far East Expeditionary Corps as a soldier from 1951 to 1955. After spending two years in Asia during the First Indochina War he returned to Niger, where he was unable to find work. He emigrated to Côte d'Ivoire and became a longshoreman in the port of Abidjan. There he met French anthropologist and filmmaker Jean Rouch. Rouch was interested in the Nigerien community in Côte d'Ivoire and hired Ganda as a statistician for his research on immigration.
It was Rouch who introduced Ganda to the cinema. Ganda had a small role in Rouch's 1957 film Zazouman de Treichville, and the lead role in Moi, un Noir (I, a Negro) in 1958. A few years later he returned to Niamey, where he became involved in the Franco-Nigerien Cultural Center. In the Center's Culture and Cinema club he met technicians who offered training in directing, camera, and sound, and he became an assistant technician. The club produced several films, and in 1968 organized a screenplay contest, for which Ganda wrote the script of his first film, Cabascabo, based on his experiences in Indochina. He continued making films throughout the 1970s, many of which received international acclaim and were vehicles of social commentary in what was then a single party state. His most famous, Le Wazzou Polygame (1970) won the first FESPACO Film Festival Best Film Award. In addition to his dramatic films, Ganda completed several documentaries and was working on one at the time of his death of a heart attack on January 1, 1981.
Producer
Based on a traditional African tale. A king has the habit whilst walking in disguise on the streets of his kingdom to listen to the wishes of his own people. One day he overhears two brothers daydreaming out loud about marrying the king's daughters, even if that meant being beheaded one year later. The weddings take place and one of the brother is decapitated one year later. The other one escapes execution at his wife's insistence. On a long journey full of surprising incidents, our hero himself becomes king of a village with wives and subjects. However, his earlier promise haunts him, and in order to save his family he accepts to be sacrificed.
Writer
Based on a traditional African tale. A king has the habit whilst walking in disguise on the streets of his kingdom to listen to the wishes of his own people. One day he overhears two brothers daydreaming out loud about marrying the king's daughters, even if that meant being beheaded one year later. The weddings take place and one of the brother is decapitated one year later. The other one escapes execution at his wife's insistence. On a long journey full of surprising incidents, our hero himself becomes king of a village with wives and subjects. However, his earlier promise haunts him, and in order to save his family he accepts to be sacrificed.
Director
Based on a traditional African tale. A king has the habit whilst walking in disguise on the streets of his kingdom to listen to the wishes of his own people. One day he overhears two brothers daydreaming out loud about marrying the king's daughters, even if that meant being beheaded one year later. The weddings take place and one of the brother is decapitated one year later. The other one escapes execution at his wife's insistence. On a long journey full of surprising incidents, our hero himself becomes king of a village with wives and subjects. However, his earlier promise haunts him, and in order to save his family he accepts to be sacrificed.
Based on a traditional African tale. A king has the habit whilst walking in disguise on the streets of his kingdom to listen to the wishes of his own people. One day he overhears two brothers daydreaming out loud about marrying the king's daughters, even if that meant being beheaded one year later. The weddings take place and one of the brother is decapitated one year later. The other one escapes execution at his wife's insistence. On a long journey full of surprising incidents, our hero himself becomes king of a village with wives and subjects. However, his earlier promise haunts him, and in order to save his family he accepts to be sacrificed.
Once upon a time, in the middle of the last century, a great warrior named Babatou. Nigerian jumper from the region Dounga Gurunsi invaded the country and settled there. The brave prisoners were integrated into the army, women espoused. For fifty years, the adventurous young people from Niger Babatou went to live in the epic.
Writer
A sorcerer (played by the director himself) controls all activities in a village. Manipulating the different parties, the sorcerer promises love, good health and riches in exchange for the most extravagant rewards. One day someone exposes him, and the sorcerer becomes the laughing stock of the whole village. Desperate, he throws himself of a cliff.
Director
A sorcerer (played by the director himself) controls all activities in a village. Manipulating the different parties, the sorcerer promises love, good health and riches in exchange for the most extravagant rewards. One day someone exposes him, and the sorcerer becomes the laughing stock of the whole village. Desperate, he throws himself of a cliff.
A sorcerer (played by the director himself) controls all activities in a village. Manipulating the different parties, the sorcerer promises love, good health and riches in exchange for the most extravagant rewards. One day someone exposes him, and the sorcerer becomes the laughing stock of the whole village. Desperate, he throws himself of a cliff.
Writer
An Islamic faithfull returns from his holy pilgrimage to Mecca with the venerated title “el hadji”. On his return he falls in love with his daughter’s friend Santou, who is already engaged to be married to Garba. El Hadji however already has two wives and his second wife, Gaika, cannot stand the idea of another younger wife entering her house. She plots to kill Santou.
Director
An Islamic faithfull returns from his holy pilgrimage to Mecca with the venerated title “el hadji”. On his return he falls in love with his daughter’s friend Santou, who is already engaged to be married to Garba. El Hadji however already has two wives and his second wife, Gaika, cannot stand the idea of another younger wife entering her house. She plots to kill Santou.
An Islamic faithfull returns from his holy pilgrimage to Mecca with the venerated title “el hadji”. On his return he falls in love with his daughter’s friend Santou, who is already engaged to be married to Garba. El Hadji however already has two wives and his second wife, Gaika, cannot stand the idea of another younger wife entering her house. She plots to kill Santou.
Cabascabo
Cabascabo, a veteran of the French colonial army in Indochina, returns to his home town in Niger, acclaimed by friends and relatives. In fragmented flash-backs, he tells the story of his adventure and the battles in that distant land.
Writer
Cabascabo, a veteran of the French colonial army in Indochina, returns to his home town in Niger, acclaimed by friends and relatives. In fragmented flash-backs, he tells the story of his adventure and the battles in that distant land.
Director
Cabascabo, a veteran of the French colonial army in Indochina, returns to his home town in Niger, acclaimed by friends and relatives. In fragmented flash-backs, he tells the story of his adventure and the battles in that distant land.
Edward G. Robinson
Winner of the prestigious Prix Louis Delluc in 1958, "Moi, un noir" marked Jean Rouch's break with traditional ethnography, and his embrace of the collaborative and improvisatory strategies he called "shared ethnography" and "ethnofiction". The film depicts an ordinary week in the lives of men and women from Niger who have migrated to Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire for work.
