Hommage / Homage

1985, 16 mm, colour/black & white, docu-fiction, 13 min. Production: Jean-Marie Teno (Cameroon).

Synopsis

After a long separation, two friends, one who has remained in his home village, the other who returns from travelling to the city and abroad, evoke with mischievousness and affection their memories and the current state of their village. Mixing poetry and irony, archive and contemporary footage, autobiography and documentary, this filmic conversation addresses colonial heritage, rural exodus, exile, and contemporary Cameroonian social inequalities.

Fièvre jaune taximan / Yellow Fever Taximan

1985, 16 mm, colour, fiction, 30 min. Production: Jean-Marie Teno (Cameroon).

Synopsis

Following a day in the life of Sam, a taxi driver in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, and through the passengers’ stories, the film portrays the animated life of this central African metropolis.

La Gifle et la caresse / The Slap and the Caress

1987, 35 mm, colour, fiction, 20 min. Production: Jean-Marie Teno (France).

Synopsis

Ferrouze, a 30-year-old housekeeper, is an immigrant from the Maghreb region. She lives with her husband Abdul in France, an intellectual who has been unemployed for ten years. On the bus, she witnesses the beginning of a love story between two teens. This pushes her to question her own choices.

Bikutsi Water Blues

1988, 35 mm, colour, docu-fiction, 84 min. Production: Jean-Marie Teno (Cameroon / France).

Synopsis

Thirteen-year-old Moses lives in a poor urban neighbourhood. At school, his teacher regularly invites professionals to come to talk about their work. The class thus gets to meet a radio broadcaster, a sanitary technician, and a musician, Zanzibar, the lead guitarist of the famous Cameroonian band, Les Tetes Brulees. Together, they address local living conditions. They also learn about the lives of rural inhabitants all over the country and their daily struggle to find lasting solutions to the problem of water. According to doctors, poor water access is responsible for two out of three diseases in these parts that paradoxically do not lack water.

Le Dernier voyage / The Last Trip

1990, 16 mm, colour, fiction, 19 min. Production: Jean-Marie Teno (Cameroon).

Synopsis

Sam is a truck driver. He carries passengers between Yaounde and Bamenda, two cities 400 kilometres apart. To stave off fatigue, he begins taking illicit pills sold by roadside hawkers.