Bassek Ba Kobhio (born 1957) is a Cameroonian filmmaker, writer and founder of the
Ecrans Noirs film festival in Yaounde, Cameroon. He is also the Director of the Higher Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Professionals of Central Africa (ISCAC) in Yaounde, the first-ever tertiary training institution for cinematography in the Central Africa sub-region.
Life
Bassek Ba Kobhio was born in 1957 in
Ninje.
He started as a writer, winning a
short story
A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...
award while still at high school in 1976.
Kobhio's first feature film, ''Sango Malo'' (1991) was an auto-adaptation of his earlier novel. The film portrayed a new village school teacher whose indifference to traditional customs causes conflict with the school's headmaster and disrupts village life. His second film, ''
Le grand blanc de Lambaréné'' (1995), brought out the complexities of character of
Albert Schweitzer
Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer (; 14 January 1875 – 4 September 1965) was a German and French polymath from Alsace. He was a theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. As a Lutheran minister, ...
. Despite clear differences of setting and subject matter, both films "offer vivid portraits of flawed idealists who wish to do good, but are authoritarian, puritanical, at odds with their surroundings and neglectful towards their womenfolk".
In 2003 he collaborated with
Didier Ouénangaré on ''
The Silence of the Forest'', an adaptation of a novel by
Étienne Goyémidé.
Works
Films
* ''Sango Malo'' / ''The Village Teacher'', 1990
* ''
Le grand blanc de Lambaréné'' / ''The Great White Man of Lambaréné'', 1995
* ''Musique s'en va-t-en guerre''
usic goes to war 1997. Documentary.
* (with
Didier Ouénangaré) ''
Le silence de la forêt'' / ''The Forest'', 2003
Books
* ''Sango Malo: le maître du canton''
ango Malo: the village teacher Paris: L'Harmattan, 1981
* ''Les eaux qui débordent: nouvelles'', Paris: L'Harmattan, 1984
References
External links
*
Bassek Ba Kobhio African Film Festival, Inc.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kobhio, Bassek Ba
1957 births
Living people
Cameroonian film directors
Cameroonian film producers