Badou Boy

Djibril Diop Mambéty
Senegal, 1970

Digital Restoration

featuring

Laminé Ba, Al Demba Ciss, Christoph Colomb, Aziz Diop Mambéty,

Mambéty’s short works foretold the exuberant creativity of his subsequent feature Touki Bouki (1973). Transferring his experience in experimental theater to cinematic innovation, in Badou Boy, Mambéty presents little stories on the screen, interweaving them with others on the soundtrack. The film revolves around a punk kid in Dakar, Senegal’s capital. The humor and conniving characters sometimes employ slapstick, with the filmmaker doubling as an actor in one Chaplin-esque scene. No chance is missed to mock authority. 

FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Djibril Diop Mambéty
Cinematographer
  • Baidy Sow
Language
  • French and Wolof
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • Color
  • DCP
  • 56 mins
Source
  • Cineteca di Bologna
Additional Info
  • Restored by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata and L’Image Retrouvée laboratories in association with Teemour Diop Mambéty. Restoration funded by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. This restoration is part of the African Film Heritage Project, an initiative created by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, the Pan African Federation of Filmmakers, and UNESCO—in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna—to help locate, restore, and disseminate African cinema.
Preceded By

Contras’ City
(City of Contrasts)

Djibril Diop Mambéty, Senegal, 1969

Mambéty’s first film, a tour of Dakar, “sensitively, imaginatively, and puckishly captures the series of contrasts that would define the tumultuous social and ideological climate that would explode in Senegal in 1968” (Documenta Madrid).

FILM DETAILS 
Language
  • Wolof
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • Color
  • DCP
  • 20 mins
source
  • Cineteca di Bologna
Additional Info
  • Restored in 2020 by Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata and The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project in association with the Criterion Collection. Funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. This restoration is part of the African Film Heritage Project, an initiative created by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, the Pan African Federation of Filmmakers and UNESCO—in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna—to help locate, restore, and disseminate African cinema.