Feature film
Clando
Jean-Marie Teno · 1996
Synopsis
Sobgui, a computer specialist who has lost his job, drives an unlicensed taxi, a clando, in Douala, hounded by licensed drivers and the police. Arrested and tortured in the past for printing leaflets against those in power, he came out of it broken and lives hidden behind his steering wheel. A wealthy elder from his village sends him to Germany to buy second-hand cars and to find his son Rigobert in Cologne, who no longer sends news. There he meets Irène, an activist for the rights of asylum seekers.
Context
The first feature-length fiction film by its author, the film opens with a tale, that of a hunter who leaves a village struck by drought. Co-produced by Les Films du Raphia with the German television channel ZDF and Arte, with the support of the Fonds Sud Cinéma, it was shot by Nurith Aviv and edited by Aurélie Ricard. Presented at Toronto, it was released in France in 1997. Le Monde sees in it the first feature film to confront the movement of democratisation in francophone Africa.
Who it is for
In French, subtitled, a little over an hour and a half. It helps to know that in Cameroon a clando is an unlicensed taxi, and that the political repression of the time is the background of the story.
Prizes and reception
Three awards in 1996: the film clubs' prize at Fribourg, the audience award at Milan and the grand prize at Vues d'Afrique in Montreal.
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