Paulin Soumanou Vieyra

Paulin Soumanou Vieyra (* 1925 in Porto-Novo , Dahomey, today Benin , † November 4, 1987 in Paris ) was an African filmmaker and film historian. He is considered a pioneer of African cinema .

biography

In 1952 he was accepted at the Paris Film School. His teachers included Georges Sadoul , Jean Mitry and Rémy Tesseneau. His graduation film C'etait il y quatre ans fell victim to censorship. The first African film is Afrique-sur-Seine , a short film that Vieyra made in 1955 with other students. Africans were still forbidden to film in the French colonies of the time. For this reason the first film made by Africans was made in Paris. The issue of Africans in the Diaspora should remain an important issue in African cinema. After graduating, Vieyra decided to go to Senegal . Vieyra and his friends from the africain du Cinéma group shot Môl (Les Pêcheurs) , the story of an ambitious young fisherman. Georges Pompidou came to Senegal to visit Léopold Sédar Senghor and Vieyra made the ironic film Écrits de Dakar .

In 1975, Vieyra's book Le cinéma africain was published. Des origines à 1973 , the first ever history of African cinema. Vieyra will again and again advocate an African criticism of African cinema, all the more since European critics often lack the prerequisites or simply the interest to adequately describe African cinema. Of course, he was also there when the Association of African Filmmakers, the Fédération Panafricaine des Cinéastes (FEPACI) was founded in 1969.

In 1982, Vieyra received his doctorate from the Sorbonne with a thesis À la recherche du cinéma africain (doctoral supervisor: Jean Rouch ).

Vieyra was often involved in the production of the films of his friend Ousmane Sembène , about whom he also wrote the first monograph.

Vieyra's only feature film is En résidence surveillée .

Works

Books

• Le cinéma et l'Afrique, Paris 1969
• Sembène Ousmane. Cinéaste, Paris 1972
• Le cinéma africain des origines à nos jours, Paris 1975
• Le cinéma au Sénégal, Brussels / Paris 1983
• Réflexions d'un cinéaste africain, présentation by Pierre Haffner; postface par Tahar Cheriaa, Bruxelles: OCIC, cop. 1990

Movies

• Afrique-sur-Seine
• Mol (Les pêcheurs)
• Le Niger aujourd'hui
• Les Africains à Vienne
• Presence Africaine à Rome
• Écrits de Dakar.
• Lamb
• Sindiély
• Avec l'Ensemble National
• N'diongane
• Birago Diop, conteur
• In residence surveilée

Literature on Vieyra

• Pierre Hafner: The role model: Paulin Soumanou Vieyra . in CICIM. Revue pour le Cinéma français, No. 27/28, Institut Français de Munich, Munich 1989, pp. 93-116
• Interviews with Vieyra in numbers 38 and 40 of the magazine Peuples Noirs - Peuples Africains published by Mongo Beti