Cabascabo
Ganda was then an assistant director in the Culture & Cinema group, founded in Niamey, under the aegis of the Franco-Nigerian Cultural Center. He thus obtained the means to shoot his first film, Cabascabo, a medium-length film of which he was the author, director and principal actor. The rigor and simplicity of the cutting, which alternates Cabascabo’s wanderings and work in Niamey with scenes he has lived through, and the effectiveness of a black and white image that excludes all spectacularity, explain, along with Ganda’s own interpretation of the character of Cabascabo, the place that the author immediately took in Niger.
Born in Niger, in the region of the river, Oumarou Ganda meets Jean Rouch who is preparing a film on these emigrants, becomes an investigator in his team, then agrees to play the role of a maneuver in the port of Abidjan in the film. Moi un Noir was a model for the school of “cinema-verité”. The quality of his first film Cabascabo enabled him to benefit from cooperation aid for the shooting of two new films, Le Wazzou polygame (1970) and Saïtane (1972). Finally, after a long silence due to the political changes in Niger, Ganda shot Cock Cock Cock, the only film available from a series of three documentaries inspired by popular songs and traditions, and L’Exilé (1980), which was released shortly time before his death.
Argos Films
Oumarou Ganda
Gérard De Battista, Toussaint Bruschini
Moussa Hamidou
Danièle Tessier
lea.baron@institutfrancais
