Tunisia and France / 1983 / 95mins / Documentary / French

Seventy years after the invention of the cinema—and after several decades of colonial cinema using Africa as an exotic setting, often denying humanity and dignity to its people—newly independent Africans finally took hold of the movie camera. Undeterred by the lack of means and infrastructure, they showed African reality in its variegated forms, seen at last through African eyes. Using extracts from significant films, interviews with filmmakers, and rare vintage footage, Camera d’Afrique recalls the first 20 years of the new auteur cinema of sub-Saharan Africa, which bears witness to an indefatigable—and still-enduring—drive for self-expression. 2K restoration from the original 16mm print done by the Laboratory of the CNC with the support of L'Institut français.

Férid Boughedir

Director, critic and film historian Férid Boughedir was born in 1944 in Hammam Lif, Tunisia. A long time critic, one of Africa and the Arab World’s best known, and author of numerous books, Férid Boughedir began by making documentaries about the new cinema coming out of these regions: Caméra d’Afrique and Caméra arabe, both of which were presented in the Official Selection at Cannes. His first fictional work, Halfaouine: Boy of the Terraces, was shown at Cannes in 1990 to acclaim from critics and audiences alike and remains to this day the biggest success in Tunisian film. A Summer in La Goulette, in competition in Berlin (1996), also won many prizes. A passionate lover of film, he became Delegate, then Director, of the oldest Pan-African festival, the Carthage Film Festival. He finished Villa Jasmin in 2008, co-produced by France 3 and Arte. His 2016 comedy, Zizou or The Sweet Smell of Spring, won Best Arabic Film at the 2016 Cairo International Film Festival. Learn More