Cinema of Gabon

The cinema of Gabon has had an uneven history. Though President Omar Bongo and his wife, Josephine Bongo, encouraged filmmaking in the 1970s, there was a 20-year hiatus until filmmaking started to grow again in the new millennium.

## History

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French companies made documentaries in colonial Gabon from 1936 onwards.[1]

After independence, Philippe Mory, Gabon's first professionally trained actor, organized the Compagnie Cinematographique du Gabon in 1962, and helped produce The Cage, a feature film entered into the 1963 Cannes Film Festival.[1] The national television company supported films like Pierre-Marie Dong's Carrefour humain (1969) and Mory's Les tams-tams se sont tus (1972).[2]

Though Gabon had only eight cinemas, President Omar Bongo and his wife Joséphine Bongo took a direct personal interest in film.[3] The President built a 400-seat cinema in his presidential palace, and in 1975 founded the Centre National Du Cinéma with Mory as director. He also founded a production company, Les Films Gabonais.[1] Gabon saw nine films from six directors in the 1970s.[3] Les Films Gabonais produced several films co-directed by Dong and based on the writings of the presidential couple: Obali (1976) and Ayouma (1977) were based on plays examining social themes by Joséphine Bongo,[4] and Demain, un jour nouveau (1978) was a version of the president's memoirs.[5] Another Gabonese film from this period was Charles Mensah's Ilombe (1978).

## Contemporary cinema

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After two decades of relative inactivity, Gabonese filmmaking started to rise again in the new millennium. Charles Mensah at the Centre National du Cinéma Gabonais (CENACI; later renamed Institut Gabonais de l'Image et du Son, or IGIS)[6] had introduced new policies to restructure Gabonese cinema in the early 1990s.[7]

Imunga Ivanga started making short films in the 1990s, and his feature film Dôlè (2000) was the first Gabonese feature film for two decades.[8] It won festival awards at Carthage, Cannes and Milan.[9]

Henri-Joseph Koumba Bididi made a number of short films, and the 2001 feature film The Elephant's Balls.[10] Ivunga and Mory collaborated on L'Ombre de Liberty (2006), and in 2014 Ivunga was made general director of the national television network, Gabon Television.[11] Amédée Pacôme Nkoulou's documentary Boxing Libreville (2018) has won several awards.

As of 2017[update], Canal Olympia was building new cinemas in Gabon.[12]

## References

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1. ^ a b c Douglas A. Yates (28 December 2017). "Cinema". Historical Dictionary of Gabon. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 119–. ISBN 978-1-5381-1012-6.
2. ^ Diawara, Manthia (1992). African Cinema: Politics & Culture. Indiana University Press. pp. 62–63. ISBN 0-253-20707-X.
3. ^ a b Roy Armes (2006). African Filmmaking: North and South of the Sahara. Indiana University Press. p. 46. ISBN 0-253-21898-5.
4. ^ David E. Gardinier (2012). "Dabany, Patience". In Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong; Henry Louis Gates Jr (eds.). Dictionary of African Biography. OUP USA. pp. 147–48\. ISBN 978-0-19-538207-5.
5. ^ Roy Armes (2008). "Dong, Pierre-Marie". Dictionary of African Filmmakers. Indiana University Press. p. 94\. ISBN 0-253-35116-2.
6. ^ "Il y a 4 ans le cinéaste Charles Mensah tirait sa révérence". gabonactu.com (in French). 3 June 2015. Archived from the original on 1 November 2016. Retrieved 17 June 2025.
7. ^ Imunga Ivanga, The revival of Gabonese cinema, Revue Africultures, Vol. 36, 2001.
8. ^ Roy Armes (2008). "Ivanga, Imunga". Dictionary of African Filmmakers. Indiana University Press. pp. 78–79\. ISBN 0-253-35116-2.
9. ^ Annelies Hickendorff (2014). Gabon. Bradt Travel Guides. p. 21\. ISBN 978-1-84162-554-6.
10. ^ Roy Armes (2008). "Koumba-Bibidi, Henri-Joseph". Dictionary of African Filmmakers. Indiana University Press. p. 85\. ISBN 0-253-35116-2.
11. ^ Douglas A. Yates (28 December 2017). "Ivanga, Imunga (1967-)". Historical Dictionary of Gabon. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 254\. ISBN 978-1-5381-1012-6.
12. ^ African cinema makes a comeback, but Hollywood gets top billing, Arab News, 1 November 2017.

## Further reading

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* Victor Bachy, Cinema au Gabon, Brussels, 1986