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I, A NEGRO

by Jean Rouch

synopsis

"I, a Negro" depicts young Nigerien immigrants who left their country to find work in the Ivory Coast, in the Treichville quarter of Abidjan, the capital. These immigrants live in squalor in Treichville, envious of the bordering quarters of The Plateau (the business and industrial district) and the old African quarter of Adjame. The film traces a week in these immigrants' lives, blurring the line between their characters' routines and their own. Every morning, Tarzan, Eddy Constantine and Edward G. Robinson seek work in Treichville in hopes of getting the 20 francs that a bowl of soup costs them. They perform menial jobs as dockers carrying sacks and handy labor shipping supplies to Europe. At night, they drink away their sorrows in bars while dreaming about their idealized lives as their "movie" alter-egos, alternatively as an FBI Agent, a womanizing bachelor, a successful boxer, and even able to stand up to the white colonialists that seduce away their women. These dream-like ...

original title: Moi, un noir
country: France
year: 1957
genre: fiction
directed by: Jean Rouch
film run: 70'
release date: FR 1957, DE 19/04/1969, SE 16/02/1973, CZ 11/04/2003
screenplay: Jean Rouch
cast: Oumarou Ganda, Gambi, Petit Touré
cinematography by: Jean Rouch
film editing: Catherine Dourgnon, Marie-Josèphe Yoyotte
producer: Pierre Braunberger

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