The beginnings
The Ivorian film industry was born in 1962 with the creation of the SIC (Société ivoirienne de cinéma). The 7th art in Côte d'Ivoire initially had a pedagogical ambition, developing at first thanks to television, an ideal channel for relaying messages and educating the population. After independence, the priorities were health, food and education. SIC's first objective was to serve and promote the vision of the authorities through the screening of news and literacy programs (Television Education Program implemented between 1968 and 1980) and the production of short and medium-length films for persuasion, national promotion and advertising. In 1964, Timité Bassori's short film Sur les dunes de la solitude officially put Côte d'Ivoire on the list of film-producing countries. Financial or technical participation in co-productions with foreign countries (mainly France) led to Christian-Jaque's Le Gentleman de Cocody, starring Jean Marais. The SIC soon showed its limitations and disappeared at the end of the 1970s, replaced by the CPAAP (Centre de production des actualités audiovisuelles et de perfectionnement permanent), which met with little more success. The causes of these successive failures were a lack of organization, a huge legal and regulatory vacuum, and a total absence of strategy for the development of film production, limited at best to a vague policy of cooperation with the West. Nevertheless, the Ivorian 7th art has enjoyed a certain renown, thanks to such cinematic successes as Désiré Écaré's Concerto pour un exil (which, thanks to this work, one of the spokesmen for the nascent African film culture along with Senegal's Sembene Ousmane), as well as works by Henri Duparc (a Guinean director who found Côte d'Ivoire his adopted homeland) such as Abusuan (1972), L'Herbe sauvage (1977) and later Bal Poussière (1988), Le Sixième doigt (1990) and Rue Princesse (1994).
From the 1990s to the present day
1991 saw the creation of the Centre ivoirien du cinéma et de l'audiovisuel (CIVCA) and the organization of the first Quinzaine du film ivoirien. The following year, Roger Gnoan M'Bala's Au nom du Christ won the Grand Prix at the prestigious Ouagadougou Pan-African Film Festival. In 1995, a convention for the development of Ivorian cinema signed with France enabled the country to obtain financial aid over four years, at the end of which a fund was set up to support cinematographic creation. However, the dubious management of this fund had the opposite effect, forcing several filmmakers to resort to self-financing. At the dawn of the 2000s, digital technology and its ability to produce and edit films at lower cost were beneficial to Ivorian cinema. However, while a few feature-length films did achieve a certain degree of public success(Couper décaler by Fadiga di Milano, Les Bijoux du sergent Digbeu by Alex Kouassi, Un Homme pour deux sœurs by Marie-Louise Asseu), the technical quality of national productions remained on the whole rather uneven, reflecting a definite lack of professionalism. At present, therefore, the picture is a mixed one. Owell Brown's Le Mec idéal (The Ideal Dude), a major summer hit in Côte d'Ivoire in 2011 and winner of the Bronze Etalon at FESPACO, nevertheless marks a certain return to favor for Ivorian cinema. This was confirmed in 2014 when Côte d'Ivoire took part in the 67th Cannes Film Festival with the film Run by Franco-Ivorian director Philippe Lacôte, selected in the "Un certain regard" category. A historic first for Côte d'Ivoire, which is financing this feature film co-produced by the Ivorian Ministry of Culture and Francophonie. The cast includes internationally acclaimed Ivorian actor Isaach de Bankolé (winner of the César for Best New Actor for Thomas Gilou's Black Mic-Mac, and featured in Jim Jarmusch's Ghost Dog, la voie du samouraï and the blockbuster Black Panther). More recently, the Ivorian authorities are involved in the production of Bienvenue au Gondwana, directed by comedian Mamane, "the first pan-African comedy". Other encouraging signs for national cinema include the fine trajectory of Olivier Koné's L'Interprète, winner of the Best Editing Award at FESPACO 2017 and the first Ivorian film to be screened on board Air France planes. Also noteworthy is the creation in 2018 of the Abidjan International Film Festival and, a year later, the Bushman Film Festival, rewarding short films made with smartphones.
The major asset: animated films
Animation is particularly dynamic in Côte d'Ivoire, thanks to studios such as Arobase, C kéma and the pioneering Afrikatoon, a sister organization of the Gbich! newspaper, which came together in April 2015 to form the Association ivoirienne du cinéma d'animation (AIFA) and promote the genre nationally and internationally. Founded in 2005 by Lassane Zohoré and Abel Kouamé, Afrikatoon's initial aim was to bring to life on screen the comic strip characters loved by Ivorians. Initially financed by the production of short institutional and advertising films, the studio took advantage of the revenues generated to embark on a more ambitious project: the production of feature-length animated films recounting, through fiction accessible to all, the life and work of great figures in African history. The first animated feature to be produced in West Africa, Pokou, Princesse Ashanti, loosely based on the life of Abla Pokou, the African queen and founder of the Baule kingdom, was acclaimed by audiences in Côte d'Ivoire and around the world, earning the studio the nickname "Africa's Walt Disney". This was followed by Soundiata Keita, le réveil du lion (2014), and Wê, l'histoire du masque mendiant (2015). Afrikatoon's fourth opus, Dia Houphouët (2018), recounts the childhood and adolescence of the first president of the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire. A work that sets the clocks back on African culture and history, and makes young and old aware of the beauty of their heritage and the greatness of Ivorian history.
