First national films

This file follows one and the same adventure repeated forty-eight times: someone shoots the first feature film of their country. In 1905 a Beijing photographer films an opera on the roof of his studio; in 1922 a Tunisian dentist makes Zohra; in 1928 an Egyptian actress produces and stars in Leila. Almost always there is no industry, no laboratory, no cinema ready to screen it, and often no sequel. In many cases the prints have vanished, and these films survive only through the press of the time.

works 46

• CinemaThe Independence of RomaniaIndependența RomânieiGrigore Brezeanu · 1912The war that gave the country its independence, re-enacted for its thirty-fifth anniversary.Cinema
• CinemaEvangelineWilliam Cavanaugh and Edward P. Sullivan · 1913After Longfellow, two Acadian lovers separated by the deportation, and the young woman's long search.Cinema
• CinemaRaja Harishchandraराजा हरिश्चंद्रDhundiraj Govind Phalke · 1913A legend that all of India knows, brought to the screen for the first time in a feature film shot on location.Cinema
• Theatre운명Yun Baek-nam · 1921not translated into EnglishPlay first staged in 1921 about a young Korean woman married by photograph to an emigrant in Hawaii.Literature
• CinemaZohraAlbert Samama Chikly · 1922Protectorate Tunisia in 1922, where a pioneer of the image shoots with his daughter a first local fiction film.Cinema
• CinemaՆամուսHamo Beknazarian · 1926Silent drama of 1926 that puts the patriarchal code of honour of Armenian families on trial.Cinema
• CinemaLailaليلىAziza Amir · 1927An oasis girl abandoned while pregnant by her fiancé, in a silent film that opens Egyptian cinema.Cinema
• CinemaNoidan kirotTeuvo Puro · 1927In the remote reaches of Lapland, an old curse and very human violence fall upon a newly married couple.Cinema
• CinemaSão Paulo, a Metropolitan SymphonySão Paulo, a sinfonia da metrópoleAdalberto Kemeny and Rodolpho Rex Lustig · 1929A silent documentary film that follows the great city of São Paulo from dawn to dusk, in the manner of the European city symphonies.Cinema
• CinemaThe Adventures of Elias Mabrukمغامرات إلياس مبروكJordano Pidutti · 1930An emigrant who has returned to find his family, the subject of the very first silent film shot in Lebanon.Cinema
• Cinemaآبی و رابیOvanes Ohanian · 1931Two burlesque companions and a troupe of student actors, in the first feature film made in Iran.Cinema
• CinemaLeila MajnunB. S. Rajhans · 1934A legend of thwarted love, brought to the screen in Malay by actors from popular theatre.Cinema
• Feature filmThe DawnTom Cooper · 1936A young man from Kerry bears the shame of a grandfather accused of treason, in the time of the armed struggle.Cinema
• Short filmLove and Friendshipعشق و دوستیRashid Latif · 1946Kabul and Lahore in the mid-forties, before Afghanistan had a studio of its own.Cinema
• CinemaThe Broken Promiseකඩවුණු පොරොන්දුවJyotish Sinha · 1947The sung melodrama with which Sinhalese talking cinema began, in 1947.Cinema
• CinemaTeri YaadDaud Chand · 1948An inheritance drama told in songs, which opens film production in the new country.Cinema
• CinemaThe Long MarchDarah dan DoaUsmar Ismail · 1950The long march of a division of the Republic across Java, seen by an officer who doubts.Cinema
• CinemaThe Boy KumasenuSean Graham · 1952Five years before independence, the cinema of the British colony tells of a village boy's arrival in the big city.Cinema
• CinemaFrosinaФросинаVojislav Nanović · 1952The first film made in the Macedonian language, about a mother alone whose husband has gone to work far away.Cinema
• CinemaJeddaCharles Chauvel · 1955An Aboriginal orphan raised among white people, abducted by a man from the bush and pursued all the way to his home.Cinema
• CinemaThe Face and the MaskMukh O MukhoshAbdul Jabbar Khan · 1956A bandit film based on a play by its director, shot with makeshift equipment by people who were learning the trade.Cinema
• Feature filmTanaKristaq Dhamo · 1958An Albanian village of the fifties, between the cooperative being set up and the ideas of the elders.Cinema
• Cinemaالابن العاقMohamed Ousfour · 1958The first long fiction film by a self-taught Moroccan filmmaker, shot in the first years of independent Morocco.Cinema
• CinemaChung một dòng sôngNguyễn Hồng Nghi · 19591959 film in which two lovers find themselves each on one bank of the river that has become the border between the two Vietnams.Cinema
• CinemaKukuliEulogio Nishiyama · 1961A pastoral myth of the Andes, that of the abducting bear, mingled with the festivities in honour of the Virgin of Carmen of Paucartambo, filmed by people from Cuzco in the language of the shepherds.Cinema
• CinemaAamaHira Singh Khatri · 1964A son returned from the army, a vanished mother, and the first fiction film shot in the kingdom.Cinema
• CinemaUkamauJorge Sanjinés · 1966An island on Lake Titicaca and the altiplano, where a peasant and a mestizo share neither the same language nor the same rights.Cinema
• CinemaPêcheurs du ChariÉdouard Sailly · 1966One of the first Chadian films: an ethnographic documentary shot on the banks of the Chari.Cinema
• Feature filmBlack GirlLa Noire de…Ousmane Sembène · 1966A flat in Antibes, where a young domestic worker from Dakar discovers the place made for her far from her own people.Cinema
• Feature filmThe Tam Tams Are SilentLes tam-tams se sont tusPhilippe Mory · 1971A sculptor attached to custom, a coveted young wife and the city that draws people in, in the early seventies.Cinema
• CinemaThe Cruel Seaبس يا بحرKhalid Al-Siddiq · 1972Before oil, the families of Kuwait live poorly from fishing and pearl diving.Cinema
• CinemaBlood of the PariahsLe Sang des pariasMamadou Djim Kola · 1973A love thwarted by caste, in a family that thinks itself modern.Cinema
• CinemaΓρηγόρης Αυξεντίου: Ένας ήρωας με το μνημοσκόπιοGiorgos Filis · 1973The year before the Turkish invasion, a filmmaker from the island has actors re-enact an episode of the insurrection against the British colony.Cinema
• CinemaThe Ransom of an AllianceLa Rançon d'une allianceSébastien Kamba · 1974A war between two peoples of precolonial Congo, set off by an adultery, shot in the languages of the country.Cinema
• CinemaThe Massacre of Kafr Kassemكفر قاسمBorhane Alaouié · 1974A Palestinian village trapped by a curfew imposed without warning, in October 1956.Cinema
• Feature filmAggro SeizemanJames Mannas and Brian Stuart-Young · 1975A comedy about a bailiff in Georgetown, filmed with local actors in the first years of independence.Cinema
• Feature filmMueda, Memory and MassacreMueda, memória e massacreRuy Guerra · 1979The popular reconstruction of a colonial massacre, filmed by a filmmaker who returned from Brazil after independence.Cinema
• CinemaKolormaskSao Gamba · 1986Kenyan cinema then has only a handful of local productions, and the State finances a film made by Kenyans.Cinema
• Feature filmThose Whom Death RefusedMortu NegaFlora Gomes · 1988It is the first fiction feature film shot in independent Guinea-Bissau, in Creole.Cinema
• CinemaJitMichael Raeburn · 1990A comedy set to the rhythm of jit music, in which a boy must earn the bride price for his beloved under the eye of an ancestral spirit.Cinema
• CinemaTinpis RunPengau Nengo · 1991Fifteen years after independence, the Highlands road links villages to towns and elders to the young.Cinema
• CinemaGito the UngratefulGito, l'ingratLéonce Ngabo · 1992It is the first feature-length fiction film directed by a Burundian, about ten years after a first short film.Cinema
• CinemaThese HandsFlora M'mbugu-Schelling · 1992A whole day in a quarry near the Tanzanian capital, with Mozambican refugee women who break stone by hand, without a word of commentary.Cinema
• Feature filmRice Peopleអ្នកស្រែRithy Panh · 1994After the genocide and two decades of war, a filmmaker returned from exile shoots in Cambodia, in Khmer, with a Cambodian crew.Cinema
• CinemaBacoOuméma Mamadali and Kabire Fidaali · 1997In the Comoros, there has been no working cinema since the eighties, nor any film industry.Cinema
• CinemaThe CupPhörpaKhyentse Norbu · 1999Tibetan monks who have taken refuge in India live under an ancient rule, apart from an event that the whole world is watching.Cinema