The Central African Republic is one of the world's poorest countries and the film industry is correspondingly small. The first film made in CAR appears to have been Les enfants de la danse, a short French-made ethnographic documentary of 1945. Joseph Akouissone was the first Central African to make a film in the country, with his 1981 documentary Un homme est un homme; [1] he was followed by the documentaries made in the 1980s by Léonie Yangba Zowe. [2] [3] Since then a series of ongoing conflicts and economic crises have severely limited the potential growth of film-making in the country. The first feature-length drama made in the country was Le silence de la forêt , a 2003 CAR-Gabon-Cameroon co-production about the Biaka people. [4] [5] [6]
More recently, director and producer Elvis Sabin Ngaibino has feature documentaries Makongo and Le Fardeau (The Burden) screened at international film festivals.
This is a sortable list of films produced in the CAR. [7] [8] [9]
| Year | Title | Director | Genre | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1958 | The Roots of Heaven (film) | John Huston | Documentary short | American |
| 1960 | boganda films | boganda | Documentary short | English |
| 1970 | Les enfants de la danse | Geneviève Dournon & Arom Simha | Documentary short | English title: Children of the Dance |
| 1978 | Safrana or Freedom of Speech | Joseph Akouissone, | Documentary short | |
| 1981 | Un homme est un homme | Joseph Akouissone | Documentary short | English title: A Man is a Man |
| 1985 | Lengue | Léonie Yangba Zowe | Documentary short | |
| 1985 | Nzale | Léonie Yangba Zowe | Documentary short | |
| 1985 | Yangba bolo | Léonie Yangba Zowe | Documentary short | |
| 1987 | Paroles de sages | Léonie Yangba Zowe | Documentary short | English title: Words of Sages |
| 1990 | Echoes from a Sombre Empire | Werner Herzog | Documentary | English title: Echoes From a Sombre Empire |
| 1992 | Bogande | Bogande | ||
| 1993 | Un Pygmée dans la baignoire | Léandre-Alain Baker | Broadcast: Canal Plus, TV5, CFI Festival: Montreal, Fespaco, Amiens... | |
| 1993 | documentary Diogène à | Léandre-Alain Baker | Drama | |
| 1995 | Tatie pouvait vivre. Video, color, | Opportune Aymadji | Drama | |
| 1996 | Colis postal (1996) | Léandre-Alain Baker | Documentary short | |
| 1998 | Au bout du couloir | Léandre-Alain Baker | Documentary short | Festivals: Montreal, Amiens. |
| 2003 | Le silence de la forêt | Bassek Ba Kobhio & Didier Ouénangaré | Drama | English title: The Silence of the Forest |
| 2004 | Les Oranges de Belleville | Léandre-Alain Baker | Documentary short | |
| 2005 | Paris la métisse | Léandre-Alain Baker | Documentary short | |
| 2006 | Tchicaya U’Tamsi | Léandre-Alain Baker | Drama | |
| 2007 | Ramata (film) | Léandre-Alain Baker | Documentary short | |
| 2008 | 35 Shots of Rum | Claire Denis | Documentary short | |
| 2009 | World of Witchcraft | Daniel Bogado | Documentary short | |
| 2009 | Saignantes (Les) | Jean-Pierre Bekolo | Documentary short | |
| 2009 | Sofie la Banguisoise (Series) 2009 | Sylviane Gboulou Mbapondo | Documentary short | |
| 2010 | A Screaming Man | Mahamat Saleh Haroun | Documentary short | |
| 2010 | White Material | Claire Denis | Documentary short | |
| 2011 | Oka! | Lavinia Currier | Drama | American drama filmed partly in CAR |
| 2011 | The Ambassador (2011 film) | Mads Brügger | Documentary short | American |
| 2011 | Love and Bruises | Lou Ye | Documentary short | |
| 2012 | magleorie kolisso | magleorie kolisso | Documentary short | |
| 2012 | Georgette Florence Koyt | Georgette Florence Koyt-Deballé | Documentary short | |
| 2013 | Aya of Yop City | Marguerite Abouet Clément Oubrerie | Documentary short | |
| 2014 | chimende Loseba | freed yapandee | Documentary short | |
| 2015 | freed yapandee | freed yapandee | Documentary short | |
| 2016 | Nascent | Lindsay Branham & Jon Kasbe | Documentary short | |
| 2017 | Sarafina | Sarafina | Documentary short | |
| 2017 | Ozagin | Dany Grepande | Drama | |
| 2017 | Chambre 1 | Leila Thiam | Documentary short | |
| 2018 | Elephant Path: Njaia Njoku | Todd McGrain | Documentary | |
| 2018 | Yé mbi | Yémbi, Par Hermann LINGANGUE | Documentary short | |
| 2019 | demain je pare en | Yann harris Dawro | Drama | |
| 2019 | Camille | Boris Lojkine | Documentary short |
La Couture de Paris,
short film, 1995. Distribution: CFI, Canal + Horizon, TV5, Festivals: Fespaco, Amiens, Montréal, Namur.
Diogenes to Brazzaville,
Documentary film, 2004. Portrait of the Congolese writer Sony Labou Tansi. Broadcast: TV 10, CFI, Canal + Horizon, TV5, Festivals: Vue d'Afrique Montreal, Amiens, Fespaco, Namur, Milan, Lisbon.
Tchicaya, the little leaf that sings its country,
Documentary film, 2004. Portrait of the Congolese writer Tchicaya U'Tamsi. Diffusion: Images Plus, CFI, Canal + Horizon, Festivals: Fespaco, Amiens.
Idrissa Ouédraogo was a Burkinabé filmmaker. His work often explored the conflict between rural and city life and tradition and modernity in his native Burkina Faso and elsewhere in Africa. He is best known for his feature film Tilaï, which won the Grand Prix at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival and Samba Traoré (1993), which was nominated for the Silver Bear award at the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival.
The Cinema of Chad is small though growing. The first film made in the country appears to have been 1958 John Huston adventure film The Roots of Heaven, filmed when the country was still a part of French Equatorial Africa. Documentary filmmaker Edouard Sailly made a series of shorts in the 1960s depicting daily life in the country. During this period there were a number of cinemas in the country, including in N'Djamena Le Normandie, Le Vogue, the Rio, the Étoile and the Shéherazade, and also the Rex in Sarh, the Logone in Moundou and the Ciné Chachati in Abéché. The film industry suffered severely in the 1970s-80s as Chad became engulfed in a series of civil wars and foreign military interventions; film production stopped, and all the cinemas in Chad closed down. Following the ousting of dictator Hissène Habré by Idriss Déby in 1990 the situation in the country stabilised somewhat, allowing the development of a nascent film industry, most notably with the work of directors Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Issa Serge Coelo and Abakar Chene Massar. Mahamat-Saleh Haroun has won awards at the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou, Venice International Film Festival and the Cannes Film Festival. In January 2011 Le Normandie in N'Djamena, said to now be the only cinema in Chad, re-opened with government support.
Flora Gomes is a Bissau-Guinean film director. He was born in Cadique, Guinea-Bissau on 31 December 1949 and after high school in Cuba, he decided to study film at the Instituto Cubano del Arte y la Industria Cinematográficos in Havana.
Mahama Johnson Traoré (1942–2010) was a Senegalese film director, writer, and co-founder of the Ouagadougou-based Pan-African Cinema Festival (FESPACO).
Sarah Maldoror ou la nostalgie de l'utopie is a Togolese short documentary film directed by Anne-Laure Folly. It was released in 1999.
Taïeb Louhichi was a Tunisian film director, screenwriter, producer and filmmaker. His best known works include his debut feature film, Shadow of the Earth (1982), Layla, My Reason (1989), and La Danse Du Vent (2004).
Mamadou Djim Kola was a Burkinabe filmmaker who directed feature films and short films.
Richard Pakleppa is a white Namibian screenwriter, film director and film producer.
Jean-Marie Teno is a Cameroonian film director and filmmaker, "one of Africa's most prolific filmmakers". His films address censorship, human rights violations, globalization, and the effects of colonialism. Teno has made films in many different forms but favors making documentaries. In an interview when asked about his favor style of film to make he responded, "documentary because when you do fiction, people think it's not true. When it's the documentary, they are embarrassed, embarrassed".
Ecrans Noirs Festival is a film festival in Yaoundé, Cameroon. It has been characterized as "Central Africa's largest cinema event".
N'Diagne Adechoubou is a Beninese film director and producer.
Richard De Medeiros is a Beninese film director.
Le silence de la forêt is a 2003 Central African Republican-Cameroonian drama film directed by Bassek Ba Kobhio and Didier Ouenangare. It is historically the first ever feature film in the Cinema of the Central African Republic. The film was also co-produced in Gabon and Cameroon. The film is adapted based on a novel written by Étienne Goyémidé with the same title Le silence de la forêt. The film was based on the ethnic minority group of African Pygmies and it is also the first film to significantly address the racism of modern Africans towards indigenous ethnic African Biaka people.
Joseph Akouissonne was a Central African film director, actor, and journalist.
Camille Mouyéké, is a Congolese filmmaker and screenwriter. He is best known for directing the award-winning 2001 thriller film Voyage à Ouaga.
Brahim Who?, is a 1982 Moroccan drama film directed by Nabyl Lahlou. It was screened at multiple national and international film festivals, including the Berlin International Film Festival.
Général, nous voilà! is a 1997 documentary film directed by Ali Essafi in his directorial debut. It won a Grand Jury Award at the Festival International du Film Francophone de Namur. It was shown at the Carthage Film Festival and at the Paris Biennale of Arab Cinema.
A Thousand and One Hands is a 1973 Moroccan film directed by Souheil Ben-Barka. It was screened abroad and received critical acclaim despite being censored in Morocco.
Abdou Achouba is a Moroccan-Italian filmmaker, journalist, film critic and producer. He has presided over the jury of short films at the Moroccan National Film Festival. He studied political science, then cinema at the IDHEC in Paris.
Elvis Sabin Ngaibino is a documentary filmmaker from the Central African Republic (CAR), credited with among the first feature-length documentary films of the cinema of the Central African Republic, and which have been shown and received awards at prestigious international film festivals.
