Movie-Database: Movies

Au Nom du Christ

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Credits

Name: Au Nom du Christ

Country: Elfenbeinküste

Year of publication: 1993

Format: 35 mm

Color: color

Language : OF frz. m. engl. UT

Duration: 80 Minuten

Direction: M'Bala, Roger Gnoan

Screenplay: M'Bala, Roger Gnoan; Akaffou, Bertin; Adiaffi, Jean-Marie

Camera: Soudani, Mohammed

Editing: Amoussy, Djangoye

Sound: Fénié, Jean-Pierre

Actor: Gondo, Pierre; Lago, Félix; Savané, Naky Sy

Abstract

In a small Ivorian village lives a much-despised little swineherd. One day, after one drink too many, a childlike God comes to him in a vision and elects him to save his people.

An African cinema classic about a self-proclaimed miracle healer, who introduces himself as “the cousin of Christ” and who has himself put on the cross in an attempt to gain followers. Director Gnoan M’Bala’s scathing masterpiece is an early rebuke of the widespread proliferation of fundamental Christian sects in West Africa. But his ire is not only directed at evangelical fanatics; he denounces the efforts of the socalled

global religions to convert Africans as a “second conquest of Africa”. M’Bala stages this “spiritual colonisation” as a garish mask and costume show and, against the rural backdrop, exposes Christian masquerading as absurd theatre. M’Bala’s film won the main prize at FESPACO 1993 and countless other awards at festivals including Locarno, Milan and Montreal.