Oumarou Ganda

Oumarou Ganda (1935 – 1 January 1981) was a Nigerien director and actor who helped bring African cinema to international attention in the 1960s and 1970s. Ganda was born in Niamey, the capital of Niger, in 1935 and was of Djerma ethnicity. He completed his primary studies in Niamey and at the age of 16 joined the French Far East Expeditionary Corps as a soldier from 1951 to 1955. After spending two years in Asia during the First Indochina War he returned to Niger, where he was unable to find work. He emigrated to Côte d'Ivoire and became a longshoreman in the port of Abidjan. There he met French anthropologist and filmmaker Jean Rouch. Rouch was interested in the Nigerien community in Côte d'Ivoire and hired Ganda as a statistician for his research on immigration. It was Rouch who introduced Ganda to the cinema. Ganda had a small role in Rouch's 1957 film Zazouman de Treichville, and the lead role in Moi, un Noir (I, a Negro) in 1958. A few years later he returned to Niamey, where he became involved in the Franco-Nigerien Cultural Center. In the Center's Culture and Cinema club he met technicians who offered training in directing, camera, and sound, and he became an assistant tec