Movie-Database: Movies
Au Nom du Christ
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.