Cinema of Niger
| Cinema of Niger | |
|---|---|
| Number of screens | 4 (2011) |
| • Per capita | <0.1 per 100,000 (2011) |
| Produced feature films (2011) | |
| Fictional | 2 |
| Animated | – |
| Documentary | 4 |
| Number of admissions (2011) | |
| Total | 50,010 |
| National films | 3,010 (6.0%) |
| Gross box office (2011) | |
| Total | XOF 30 million |
The cinema in Niger grew from ethnographic documentaries in the colonial period to become one of the most active national film cultures in Francophone Africa. Filmmakers such as Oumarou Ganda, Moustapha Alassane, Mahamane Bakabé, Inoussa Ousseini and Moustapha Diop have had their work featured around the world. The Niamey African Film Meeting (rencontres du cinéma africain de Niamey RECAN) is one of the premier film events of the continent. Unlike neighboring Nigeria, with its thriving Hausa- and English-language film industry (see Nollywood), most Nigerien films are made in French and Francophone countries have been their major market, while action and light entertainment films from Nigeria or dubbed western films, fill most Nigerien theaters.
Nigerien cinema first appeared in the colonial period. Jean Rouch, a French ethnographic filmmaker, is generally considered the father of Nigerien film. Despite arriving as a colonialist in 1941, Rouch remained in Niger after independence, and mentored a generation of Nigerien filmmakers and actors, including Damouré Zika and Oumarou Ganda. By 1950, Rouch had made the first films set in Niger with "au pays des mages noirs" (1947), in 1948 " l'initiation à la danse des possédés" and "Les magiciens de Wanzarbé" in 1949.
Still, many of the ethnographic films produced in the colonial era by Jean Rouch and others were rejected by African film makers because in their view they distorted African realities.
During the 1950s, Rouch began to produce longer, narrative films. In 1954 he filmed Damouré Zika in "", as a young Songhai man traveling for work to the Gold Coast. Filmed as a silent ethnographic piece, Zika helped re-edit the film into a feature-length movie which stood somewhere between documentary and fiction, and provided dialog and commentary for a 1969 release. In 1957 Rouch directed in Côte d'Ivoire "Moi un noir" with the young Nigerian filmmaker Oumarou Ganda, who had recently returned from French military service in Indochina. Ganda went on to become the first great Nigerien film director and actor. By the early 1970s, Rouch, with cast, crew, and cowriting from his Nigerien collaborators, was producing full length dramatic films in Niger, such as ("Little by Little" : 1971) and ("Cocka-doodle-doo Mr. Chicken": 1974).
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