A masterpiece by Jean Rouch, which inspired the French New Wave, and a film directed by its protagonist Oumarou Ganda. Screening as part of the film programme Tashkent-1970. The Festival That Never Was.
Being Black. Cabascabo
- Date:
- 18 Jul 2025,
19:30–21:40
- Age restrictions
- 18+
Moi, un noir
1958, Jean Rouch
France–Côte d'Ivoire
73 minutes, French with Russian subtitles
Starring: Oumarou Ganda, Petit Tourè, Alassane Maiga, Amadou Demba
Cabascabo
1968, Oumarou Ganda
Niger–France
45 minutes, Zarma with Russian subtitles
Starring: Oumarou Ganda, Zalika Souley, Issa Gombokoye, Balarabi
T
Anthropologist and director Jean Rouch gave full freedom to his Nigerien hero, dock worker Oumarou Ganda, and his friends. The result was a film in which the documentary and the staged are combined in such a way that the distinction itself loses its point. The effect was seismic: Rouch’s work was admired by François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette.
Shots from Being Black and Cabascabo, 1958, 1968
By calling his film Me, a Black, Jean Rouch, who is white like Rimbaud, also declares, “I is another.” Therefore his film acts as a poetic open sesame.
— Jean-Luc Godard, Arts
Navigating change, as a society and as an individual, can be a complicated topic. Cabascabo handles it with grace.
— Rachael Crawley, Films Fatale
Later, Ganda began to make films himself: his debut Cabascabo about a black soldier returning from Vietnam was based on his own experience. The film is more straightforward and classic than Rouch’s, but in some ways wiser.
