• Source: Med Hondo

Med Hondo (born Mohamed Abid; 4 May 1935 – 2 March 2019) was a Mauritanian-born French director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. Considered a founding father of African cinema, he is known for his controversial films dealing with issues such as race relations and colonization. His critically acclaimed 1970 directorial début feature, Soleil O, received the Golden Leopard award at the 1970 Locarno International Film Festival and was chosen in 2019 by the African Film Heritage Project for restoration. His 1979 film West Indies was the first African film musical and, at $1.3 million, the most expensive production in African film history.
In his later years, Hondo became known for dubbing Hollywood hits that included Shrek, The Lion King, The Nutty Professor, and Se7en.




Biography


Hondo was born in 1935 in Atar, Mauritania. His mother was Mauritanian and his father Senegalese. In 1954, Hondo went to Rabat, Morocco, to train to become a chef at the International Hotel School there. He emigrated to France in 1959 and found work first in Marseille and then in Paris, variously as a cook, farm labourer, waiter, dockworker and delivery man. He found that he and other African immigrants were unable to gain work in their chosen professions, and in the menial jobs they could find, they were paid less than the French. The difficulty of making a living during this time, as well as the racism he experienced, eventually provided inspiration for Hondo's films, including Soleil O (1970) and Les Bicots-nègres, vos voisins (1974).
He began to take classes in acting and directing, and studied under French actress Françoise Rosay, acting in classic plays by Shakespeare, Molière and Racine. Hondo was unable to fully express himself with French repertoire theatre, and in 1966 formed his own theatre company with Guadeloupean actor Robert Liensol. Named Shango (from Shango, the Yoruba god of thunder), and later Griot-Shango, the company produced plays relating the experiences of Black people, including works by René Depestre and Aimé Césaire.
In the late 1960s, Hondo started taking small acting roles in television and films. As he learned the craft of film making by careful observation of the work of others, he began to get work behind the camera. He began work on his first film, Soleil O, in 1965. Made on a $30,000 budget, it was financed by Hondo's work dubbing American films into French. Soleil O played during International Critics' Week at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival, where it received critical acclaim. Soleil O received a Golden Leopard award at the 1970 Locarno International Film Festival. In 1981, Hondo was a member of the jury at the 12th Moscow International Film Festival.
Hondo also worked frequently as a voice actor. He worked on the dubbing of many English-language films into French, voicing characters played on screen by Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley and Danny Glover (on the rare occasions when Glover was not dubbed by Richard Darbois). Hondo dubbed several of Eddie Murphy's films, including The Nutty Professor (1996) and the part of Donkey in 2001's Shrek and its sequels.
Med Hondo explained on his website that he met with Danny Glover in 1991 and presented his then-current project to him: a biopic of Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture. According to Hondo, an enthusiastic Glover voiced his interest in the lead role, and in taking part in the production side of the film, but then cut all communication with Hondo and co-writer Claude Veillot. Hondo claimed that Glover's own Louverture biopic project, financially backed by Hugo Chavez, was inspired by his original screenplay, and addressed an open letter to Glover in which he denied assertions from Glover's "Louverture Films" company that the script was a commission paid by Glover to Hondo. Hondo also mentioned his meeting with Glover in an English-language interview on French international news channel France 24.
Hondo died in Paris on 2 March 2019, aged 83.




Filmography






= Director

=
1967: Soleil O'
1974: Les Bicots-nègres, vos voisins (Arabs and Niggers, Your Neighbours)
1975: Sahel la faim pourquoi
1977: Nous aurons toute la mort pour dormir
1979: West Indies
1986: Sarraounia
1994: Lumière noire (Black Light)
1998: Watani, un monde sans mal
2004: Fatima, l'Algérienne de Dakar




= Actor

=
1964: Les verts pâturages (TV Movie)
1965: Belphégor (TV Mini-Series) as Gaillac
1965: Seule à Paris (TV Series)
1965: Bob Morane (TV Series) as Notomi, le guide indien
1966: Retour à Bacoli (TV Movie) as Un tirailleur
1967: Un homme de trop as Florent
1968: Tante Zita as James
1969: A Walk with Love and Death as Entertainer
1974: Aux frontières du possible (TV Series) as Le docteur Sosian Cisse
1975: Jo Gaillard (TV Series) as Carlos
1977: The Ambassadors as Med
1978: Safrana ou le droit à la parole as Récitant / Narrator (voice)
1989–1991: Commissaire Moulin (TV Series) as Max
1990: 1871 as Karl Marx
1997: La divine poursuite as the pilot
2000: Antilles sur Seine as Horace
2003: Funky Cops (TV Series) as Ace (French version, voice)
2006: Incontrôlable as Rex (voice)
2006: Asterix and the Vikings as pirate lookout (voice)




= Dubbing

=
1982: Gandhi as Ben Kingsley's Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
1984: Beverly Hills Cop as Eddie Murphy's Axel Foley
1984: Best Defense as Eddie Murphy's Lieutenant T.M. Landry
1994: The Lion King as Rafiki
1995: Se7en as Morgan Freeman's Detective Lt. William Somerset
1996: The Nutty Professor as Eddie Murphy's Sherman Klump
2001: Samurai Jack as Aku
2001: Shrek as Eddie Murphy's Donkey
2003: Xiaolin Showdown as Dojo
2004: Shrek 2 as Donkey
2007: Shrek the Third as Donkey
2010: Shrek Forever After as Donkey




Footnotes






References






= Books

=
Dedieu, Jean-Philippe (2012). La Parole Immigrée. Les Migrants Africains dans l'Espace Public en France (1960-1995). Klincksieck. pp. 149–187. ISBN 978-2-252-03828-4.
Murphy, David; Patrick Williams (2007). Postcolonial African Cinema: Ten Directors. Manchester University Press. pp. 71–90. ISBN 978-0-7190-7203-1.
Sherzer, Dina; Madeleine Cottenet-Hage (1996). Cinema, Colonialism, Postcolonialism: Perspectives from the French and Francophone World. University of Texas Press. pp. 173–187. ISBN 0-292-77703-5.
Signaté, Ibrahim (1994). Med Hondo. Un Cinéaste Rebelle. Présence Africaine. ISBN 2-708-70584-9.
Ukadike, Nwachukwu Frank (2002). Questioning African Cinema: Conversations with Filmmakers. University of Minnesota Press. pp. 57–72. ISBN 0-8166-4004-1.




= Other references

=
Reid, Mark; Blum, Sylvie (31 March 1986). "Med Hondo Interview: Working Abroad". Jump Cut. Retrieved 24 August 2009.
"Shrek adapté par Sam Mendes" (in French). Canadian Online Explorer. 17 October 2002. Archived from the original on 7 June 2011. Retrieved 25 August 2009.
"Directors in Focus — African Perspectives: Med Hondo". Harvard Film Archive. 2006. Retrieved 24 August 2009.
"Eddie Murphy Change de Voix, Med Hondo Evincé". L'Humanité (in French). 9 April 1997. Archived from the original on 16 June 2007. Retrieved 26 August 2009.
"Winners of the Golden Leopard". Locarno International Film Festival Official Site. Retrieved 26 August 2009.
"Biography". Med Hondo's Official Site. Archived from the original on 28 January 2011. Retrieved 24 August 2009.




External links


Official website at the Wayback Machine (archived 19 April 2018)
Med Hondo at IMDb
Med Hondo at Behind The Voice Actors

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Sinema Afrika
• Festival Film Cannes 2017
• Daftar rumah sakit di California
• Med Hondo
• Hondo
• West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty
• Soleil O
• Sarraounia (film)
• List of French-language films
• Nous aurons toute la mort pour dormir
• Atar, Mauritania
• List of film auteurs
• 2019 in film