Richard De Medeiros
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Richard De Medeiros | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1937 Ouidah |
| Died | 2017 (aged 79–80) Nanterre |
| Occupation | film director |
Richard De Medeiros (1937–2017) was a Beninese film director.[1]
Richard De Medeiros was born in 1937 in Ouidah, died in 2017 in Nanterre and studied literature in Cotonou and Paris.[1] He later taught literature at the National University of Benin in Cotonou, specializing in surrealism.[2]
De Medeiros made two documentaries and a short feature film before his first feature film.[1] The King died in exile was made while he was teaching at the Institut de Journalisme in Algiers.[2] It looked at Béhanzin, the last king of Dahomey, exiled by the French colonial powers to Martinique.[3] His short film Teke, Hymne au Borgou reappropriated ethnographic codes of filmmaking, blending them with elements of oral tradition and griot narrative style.[4] The Newcomer (1976) was Benin's second feature film. It focussed on the clash between Senou, a corrupt civil servant, and Ahouenou, a newcomer who wants to clean things up. After Senou resorts to witchcraft and Agouenou suffers an accident, Agouenou tries to gain acceptance by undergoing magical initiation.[3]
De Medeiros was an influence on younger Beninese filmmakers like François Sourou Okioh. He created a film club, Association du 7e art, and a cultural review, Perspectives 7.[5] In the early 1980s he was interviewed by Pierre Haffner, participating in the debates among African filmmakers about the extent to which Jean Rouch's cinematic practice escaped its colonial context.[6]
In 1980 he was filmed as a subject for Gérard Courant's Cinématon.[7]
