Cinema
L'Étoile noire
Djingarey Maïga · 1975
Synopsis
A man dazzled by money, business and success divides his life between two women: his lawful wife, attached to custom, and a girl from the bar l'Étoile noire, turned towards the West, with whom he falls in love. The film follows his romantic and marital misadventures in the capital; the plot is not known in more detail.
Context
The shoot was done in sixteen millimetre and in black and white, for ninety-five minutes, on a screenplay by the director, who also operated the camera with Gérard Dupuis and played one of the roles. Moustapha Alassane and Damouré Zika, two figures of the emerging Nigerien cinema, appear at his side. Four years earlier, its author had still been employed reading electricity meters in Niamey. Sources hesitate between 1975 and 1976: the catalogue entry gives the first date, the biographical notices the second. The film opened a series of feature films whose titles all carry the word black.
Who it is for
One hour thirty-five. Nothing is required to follow it, except knowing that the bar gives the film its name and serves as the setting for the character's second life.
Prizes and reception
Prix de la Commune. Its author, known as the last of the Mohicans, remains the only pioneer of Nigerien cinema still active half a century later.