The beginnings
The Ivorian film industry was born in 1962 with the creation of the SIC (Société ivoirienne de cinéma). The 7th Ivorian art first displays an educational ambition, developing initially thanks to television, an ideal broadcasting channel for relaying messages and educating the population. In the aftermath of independence, the priorities concern health, food and education. CLC's first objective was to serve and promote the vision of the authorities through the projection of news and literacy programmes (Television Education Programme set up between 1968 and 1980) and the production of short and medium-length films for persuasion, national promotion and advertising. In 1964, Timité Bassori's short film Sur les dunes de la solitude (On the Dunes of Solitude ) officially placed Côte d 'Ivoire on the list of film-producing countries. Financial or technical participation in co-productions with foreign countries (mainly France) led to Le Gentleman de Cocody, by Christian Jaque with Jean Marais. The SIC quickly showed its limits and disappeared at the end of the 1970s, taken over by the CPAAP (Centre de production des actualités audiovisuelles et de perfectionnement permanent), which was hardly more successful. Causes of these successive failures: a lack of organization, a great legal and regulatory vacuum, and a total absence of a strategy for the development of film production, which was at most limited to a vague policy of cooperation with the West. The 7th art in Côte d'Ivoire nevertheless enjoys a certain renown, thanks to some fine film successes such as Concerto for an Exile by Désiré Écaré (which became famous thanks to this work, he is one of the spokespersons of the nascent African film culture with the Senegalese Sembene Ousmane) as well as the works of Henri Duparc (a Guinean director who finds in Ivory Coast an adopted homeland) such as Abusuan (1972), L'Herbe sauvage (1977) and later Bal Poussière (1988), Le Sixième doigt (1990) or Rue Princesse (1994).
From the 1990s to the present day
In 1991, the Centre ivoirien du cinéma et de l'audiovisuel (CIVCA) was created and the first Quinzaine du film ivoirien was organized. The following year, Roger Gnoan M'Bala's Au nom du Christ was awarded the Grand Prix at the prestigious Pan-African Film Festival in Ouagadougou. In 1995, a convention for the development of Ivorian cinema signed with France enabled the country to obtain financial aid spread over four years, at the end of which a fund was set up to support film creation. But the dubious management of the latter had the opposite effect, forcing several directors to resort to self-financing. At the dawn of the new millennium, digital technology and its ability to make and edit a film at a lower cost is beneficial to Ivorian cinema. However, while a few feature films have enjoyed some public success(Couper décaler by Fadiga di Milano, Les Bijoux du sergent Digbeu by Alex Kouassi, Un Homme pour deux s œurs by Marie-Louise Asseu), the technical quality of national productions remains on the whole rather uneven and reflects a certain lack of professionalism. At the moment, the results are therefore mixed. Great success in the summer of 2011 in Côte d'Ivoire and winner of the Bronze Stallion at FESPACO, Owell Brown's Le Mec idéal is nevertheless beginning to make a comeback in Ivorian cinema. An upturn confirmed in 2014 by Côte d'Ivoire's participation in the 67th Cannes Film Festival with the film Run by Franco-Ivorian director Philippe Lacôte, selected in the category "Un certain regard". A historic first for Côte d'Ivoire, which is financing this feature film co-produced by the Ivorian Ministry of Culture and Francophonie. The cast includes internationally renowned Ivorian actor Isaach de Bankolé (winner of the César masculin du meilleur espoir for Black Mic-Mac by Thomas Gilou and in the cast of Ghost Dog, la voie du samouraï, by Jim Jarmusch and in the blockbuster Black Panther). More recently, the Ivorian authorities are involved in the production of Bienvenue au Gondwana directed by the humorist Mamane, "the first pan-African comedy". Other encouraging signs for the national film industry are the fine trajectory of Olivier Koné's The Interpreter, winner of the Best Editing Award at FESPACO 2017 and the first Ivorian film to be screened on board Air France aircraft. Also noteworthy is the creation in 2018 of the Abidjan International Film Festival and one year later, the Bushman Film Festival, which awards prizes for short films made with smartphones.
The major asset: animated films
It is noted that animation cinema is particularly dynamic in Côte d'Ivoire thanks to studios such as Arobase, C kéma and the pioneering Afrikatoon, a sister structure of the newspaper Gbich! grouped together in April 2015 to form the Ivorian Association of Animated Cinema (AIFA) and promote this genre nationally and internationally. Founded in 2005 by Lassane Zohoré and Abel Kouamé, Afrikatoon's initial goal was to bring to life on screen the comic book characters loved by Ivorians. Initially financed by the production of short institutional and advertising films, the studio took advantage of the revenues generated to launch a more ambitious project: the production of feature-length animated films recounting, through fictions accessible to all, the life and work of great figures of African history. The first animated feature film produced in West Africa, Pokou, Princess Ashanti, freely inspired by the life of Abla Pokou, the African queen and founder of the Baule kingdom, was acclaimed by Ivorian and international audiences and earned the studio the nickname "African Walt Disney. This was followed by Soundiata Keita, le réveil du lion (2014), and Wê, l'histoire du masque mendiant (2015). Fourth opus of Afrikatoon, Dia Houphouët (2018), relates the childhood and adolescence of the first president of the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire. A work that sets the clocks back on African culture and history and makes young and old aware of the beauty of their heritage and the greatness of Ivorian history.
