The beginnings of Djiboutian cinema

Unfortunately, there are very few Djiboutian films, but we can mention the feature film Le Grand Moussa

, made in 1984 by Ahmed Dini, which tells the story of an anti-hero suffering from dwarfism who takes his revenge on the society that has excluded him by becoming a swindler. Also the documentary programme Le Livre beige, produced by RTD, Djibouti television, in the 1980s, which gave visibility to some local filmmakers. Moussa Farah directed the episode Les Caravaniers in 1987, about the life of caravaneers in desert landscapes, and a village in Goroabus on the banks of a never-dry river. The film was shown at the Canadian Vues d'Afrique festival in 1989. Another episode, Forced Landing, was shot by Saad Houssein in 1988. It follows the journey of a little boy from the desert to school.

From literature to cinema: French people in Djibouti

Its past as a French colony has made Djibouti a popular place for artists in exile. Among them, the poet Arthur Rimbaud, but also Henry de Monfreid, who have inspired scripts.

Total Eclipse (1995) traces the stormy relationship between Rimbaud, played by Leonardo di Caprio, and Verlaine, played by David Thewlis. Directed by Polish director Agnieszka Holland, the film was shot in Djibouti on the Ghoubbet-el-Kharab cove with its view of Devil's Island, and in the deserts of Petit Bara and Grand Bara. Lettres de la mer Rouge (2005), a TV film by Eric Martin and Emmanuel Caussé, is about Monfreid, a writer and adventurer who wandered the shores of the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa from 1911 to World War II. Part of the filming was done in the vicinity of Lake Abbe.

Armed fictions

Now home to a French military base, Djibouti is also the setting for testosterone-fuelled fiction. Claire Denis' Beau travail (2000) was largely shot in Arta. The film tells the story of the life of the legionnaires in the extreme conditions of the desert, between virile friendships and chores, with the extraordinary Denis Lavant. The final scene is a must-see in modern cinema! In 2005, Les Chevaliers du ciel by Gérard Pirès was shot around the military base in Djibouti. Top Gun à la française, the film is largely inspired by the comic strip Les Aventures de Tanguy et Laverdure

by Jean-Michel Charlier and Albert Uderzo. Two pilots, Benoît Magimel and Clovis Cornillac, are drawn into the hijacking of a fighter plane. In another aspect of this armed zone, Wim Wenders invests the cities of Tadjourah and Sagallou for the shooting of his film Submergence, in which one of the characters is kidnapped by jihadists.

Local heroes with twisted destinies

Foreign filmmakers have also gradually become interested in the stories of African men and women, involving local actors. Si le vent soulève les sables (If the wind lifts the sands), by Marion Hänsel, a leading figure in Belgian cinema, was released in 2006. Inspired by the novel La Chamelle

by Marc Durin-Valois, it tells the story of a nomadic family trying to survive despite the drought. The film received numerous awards. The fate of Waris Dirie, a former top model of Somali origin who became an ambassador for the UN, is told in Desert Flower, a moving biopic directed by Sherry Hormann that denounces the practice of female circumcision.