Chadian cinema past and present
Occupied by French colonialists until 1960, Chad was unable to develop a film industry, and the one that has emerged since independence remains small-scale. Despite this, several Chadian filmmakers made films in their country during the second half of the 20th century. In the 1960s, documentary filmmaker Édouard Sailly began shooting a series of short films in his native country. Trained in France and a specialist in film newsreels, he brought the landscapes of his now-independent Chad to the screen. Le Lac Tchad, Pêcheurs du Chari and L'Enfant du Tchad are examples of this series, which are difficult to see today.
It wasn't until the 1990s and the end of the country's internal conflicts that several well-known figures of Chadian cinema emerged, and are still active today. After studying at ESRA, Issa Serge Coelo made his first short film, Un cab pour Aouzou, in 1994. The film received rave reviews and was nominated for a César award. The same year, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun directed Maral Tanié, co-produced with Burkina Faso and selected at the Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival. At the same time, director Zara Mahamat Yacoub produced her first short documentary, Dilemme au féminin, a political firebrand questioning the mutilation inflicted on Chadian women, which caused quite a stir.
In 1999, Haroun directed the first feature-length film in Chad's history, a docu-drama inspired by his own experience entitled Bye Bye Africa, which was awarded the Luigi De Laurentiis Prize in Venice for outstanding first works. A poignant account of a filmmaker's search for his war-torn country, where cinema has been eradicated, and how he might yet be able to rebuild it. It's a thread that runs through the filmmaker's entire career, as much behind the camera as in real life, since it's thanks to him that the country's first movie theater will reopen in 2011, after decades of closure.
A year later, it was Issa Serge Coelo's turn to bring his country's history to life in Daresalam. In this film, the filmmaker breathes life into the atrocities that destroyed Chad between 1960 and 1970. A powerful work, devoid of heroes, but one that sheds light on the country's little-known history through the eyes of one of its own citizens.
In the early 2010s, Chadian cinema is back on the red carpet. Abakar Chene Massar took his film Le Pèlerin de Camp Nou (2009) to the steps of Montreal, London and Rotterdam, while Mahamat Saleh Haroun won the Prix du Jury at the Cannes Film Festival for Un homme qui crie (2010). A regular at Cannes, he returned in 2013 with GrisGris, then in 2021 with Lingui, les liens sacrés, two films in competition for the Palme d'Or.
Today, the influence of the country's two most important filmmakers, Issa Serge Coleo and Mahamat Saleh Haroun, continues to be felt. The latter is still filming today, having served as Minister of Culture between 2017 and 2018. Since 2011, the former has been director of Le Normandie cinema in N'Djamena, the country's only active cinema.
The Normandie, a welcome resurrection
Inaugurated in the aftermath of the Second World War, the Normandie is a cinema founded by Georges Hamdani, an Iranian Jew who served as muezzin of the Grand Mosque of Fort-Lamy (the former name of N'Djamena until 1975) from the 1920s until 1943. From the 1950s to the 1990s, the 700-seat theater hosted shows, family screenings, major international films and French cinema. When it was bought by a Chadian businessman in 1990, it was threatened with demolition to make way for a shopping complex. It was eventually saved, but remained derelict until the late 2010s, when Chadian filmmakers succeeded in obtaining a government subsidy for its restoration. On December1, 2011, Le Normandie reopened its doors. Today, it is one of the only movie theaters in French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa, equipped with digital projectors and a 35 mm projector. A must-see during your stay in the country.
Some notable films shot in Chad
Aside from the nuggets produced by Chadian filmmakers, the country has been able to host a few international shoots. But in the absence of a clear policy on the subject, these have remained sporadic. The first American film shoot in the country dates back to before independence, in 1958, when John Huston set foot in Fort-Lamy for Les Racines du Ciel. Adapted from a novel by Romain Gary, the film follows the struggles of Morel (Trevor Howard), Minna (Juliette Gréco) and Forsythe (Errol Flynn), who fight poachers to save the region's last elephants. A work of adventure and political pamphlet, also featuring Orson Welles, which you can discover in a restored version in an edition accompanied by numerous period interviews.
More recently, filming has been limited mainly to documentaries, which nonetheless remain poignant and essential works. In 2018, Italian filmmaker Paolo Casalis put into images the journey of the Darfur United players, a team of refugees who propel themselves to the stadiums of the World Cup. An obstacle course where the toughest battles are not fought on the soccer pitch, and a captivating film.
Three years earlier, Spanish filmmaker Isabel Coixet shot her short film Parler de Rose, a prisoner of Hissène Habré, in Chad. Narrated by Juliette Binoche, the documentary recounts the life and death of Rose Lokissim, a prisoner of Chad's former dictator Hissène Habré. Through the testimonies of people who came into contact with the prisoner, who was executed in 1986, Isabel Coixet has made a poignant film, a tribute to this courageous woman. The film can now be viewed online, to keep the story of this Chadian heroine of freedom alive, and enable you to learn more about the country's recent history.
