Tribute to The Film Foundation 2021 / La femme au couteau / Ivory Coast 1969
Timité Bassori is one of the fathers of Ivorian cinema. The Woman with the Knife is his best known film – a complex account of a young unnamed intellectual returning home after a lengthy spell in Europe. Providing an incessive commentary on evolving sexual politics and the wide chasm between the Western form of modernity and African traditionalism, Bassori’s daring coup is one of the pioneering works of black African cinema.
Timité Bassori is one of the unsung heroes of African film and one of the fathers of Ivorian cinema – a singular voice whose work remains largely unavailable globally. The Woman with the Knife is his best known film – a complex account of a young, unnamed Ivorian intellectual returning home after a lengthy spell in Europe. Failing to reconcile his new-found modernist views with his African traditions, the man becomes haunted by the specter of a knife-brandishing woman threatening to shatter any potential relationships with other women. Providing an incessive commentary on the evolving sexual politics of the era and the wide chasm between the Western form of modernity and self-enveloping African traditionalism, Bassori’s daring coup is one of the pioneering works of black African cinema.
Joseph Fahim
80 min / Black & white, DCP
Director Timité Bassori
/ Screenplay Timité Bassori
/ Dir. of Photography Ivan Baguinoff
/ Editor Guy Ferrant
/ Producer Timité Bassori
/ Production Société Ivoirienne de Cinéma
/ Cast Timité Bassori, Marie Vieyra, Danielle Alloh, Tim Sory, Emmanuel Diaman
/ Sales Cineteca di Bologna
Timité Bassori (1933, Aboisso, Ivory Coast). Filmography: On the Bank of Solitude (Sur la dune de la solitude, 1964, short), The Woman with the Knife (La femme au couteau, 1969).
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