Africa 50 ( Afrique 50 ) ( Africa Fifty )

Africa 50 (DVD) (*)

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Original Title: Afrique 50
Alternate Title: Africa Fifty
Screened, competed or awarded at:
Other Film Festival Awards

Language Selections:
English ( Subtitles )
French ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )
Spanish ( Subtitles )

Product Origin/Format:
France ( PAL/Region 0 )

Running Time:
44 min + 100 min extras

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen

Special Features:
Interactive Menu
Scene Access
Booklet

Movie filmed in 1950 and produced in:
France ( France, Benelux )

Directed By:
René Vautier

Written By:
René Vautier

Actors:
René Vautier ..... Récitant / Narrato

Synopsis:

Africa 50 (Afrique 50) - 1950 ***French audio with English & Spanish subtitles***
Directed by René Vautier
Director René Vautier was sent to West Africa to cover the educational outreach of the French League of Schooling. What was meant to be a tribute to the benefits of colonization turned into a scathing exposé of the French rule when the then-21-year-old filmmaker witnessed horrible living conditions and violent acts committed by the army in the name of his home country. Afrique 50 is considered to be the first French anti-colonialist film, and was banned by the government until the 1990s. Vautier was also incarcerated for several months because of the film. 1950, France, 17 minutes.

Sand and Blood (De Sable et de Sang) - 2012 ***WARNING***French Audio ONLY***
Directed by Michel Le Thomas
Some 60 years after he made Afrique 50, Vautier is interviewed about his experiences in West Africa, missed connections between cultures, and the films that a young Mauritanian sent to him over the years until his tragic attempt at emigration to Europe. 2012, France, 27 minutes.

Africa 50 (Afrique 50) - 1950
Documentary about the living conditions in a small Ivorian village during French colonization. In 1945, René Vautier is a young Breton of 21 years and former resistance fighter awarded the War Cross medal a year earlier. After his graduation from IDHEC (today, La Fémis), he leaves for the Ivory Coast to shoot images for the French Education League. The aim of the movie is to show French high school students how villagers live in French West Africa. The young director gets there without any prejudices regarding the French occupation in Africa… He shoots… But the authorities blame him for not respecting Pierre Laval's 1934 decree which banned all shooting in French West Africa without the governor's consent. Tracked down during the 10-day filming and officially expelled, he flees from Bamako and illegally films his 600-mile journey: marks of oppression, repression, burnt down villages and other Human Rights violations. After several months spent in Africa, he will manage, with the help of Africans, Breton fishermen, judges and customs officers, to bring the reels back home. A last ploy at the police station of Reuilly in Paris will enable him to save a quarter of his film stock and edit the movie Afrique 50.

Africa 50 (Afrique 50) - 1950
As a young filmmaker Ren‚ Vautier went to French colonial Africa to make his first film. Nominally a documentary which would provide insight in the life in the Occident and which would be fit to be screened at French secondary schools. However, Vautier's real intention was to make an animated colonial film, which may have had an educational purpose too, but more so as an eye-opener concerning the true rights and wrongs of colonialism. This resulted in a ban on afrique 50 in France for forty years. The film was allegedly 'missing', but in reality it sat in the censors' offices all that time.

This product was added to our catalog on Monday 17 March, 2014.