Bassek Ba Kobhio
2021Le Grand Blanc de Lambaréné
Bassek Ba Kobhio
André Wilms, Marisa Berenson
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), the mission doctor, theologian and philosopher who founded a hospital in the rainforests of Gabon, achieved sainthood in his lifetime, at least in the popular imagination. The critical assessment of his life and works in recent years, however, has been slightly more ambivalent. Ba Kobhio Bassek is the first director to examine this medical missionary from a purely African point-of-view.
The Great White of Lambarene
Le silence de la forêt
Didier Ouénangaré, Bassek Ba Kobhio
Ériq Ebouaney, Nadège Beausson-Diagne
A film about the difficulty for even the most well-intentioned person to know and respect another culture. In this case, the problem is so acute that there is even heated debate over what to call that 'other.' The subtitles in the film use the familiar word 'pygmies,' a relatively pejorative European term; the Bantu or villagers' expression for the same group, Babingas, carries similar negative connotations. These highly specialized, tropical rainforest hunter-gatherers should perhaps be called by their own ethnonym, Aka, MoAka (sing.) and BaAka (pl.)
The Forest
Le maître des éléphants
Patrick Grandperret
Alain Artur, Bassek Ba Kobhio
After the death of his mother, twelve-year-old Martin joins his unknown father in Africa. Newly conceived by this father, who is more worried about the reserve he manages than about his 'new' son, thanks to the friendship between Fofana and Victor, Martin discovers this completely new country and its contradictions. The disappearance of the elephants brings father and son closer together.
Le maître des éléphants