Mahamat Saleh Haroun is an award winning filmmaker from Chad. His latest documentary, A Chadian Tragedy was screened at the Ake Arts & Book Festival held in Abeokuta, Nigeria last November.
His 2010 feature film, The Screaming Man won the Jury’s Prize at The Cannes Film Festival in France. Following that coveted win, Saleh-Haroun was heralded by The Guardian as the renaissance man bringing Chad to the world. Gris-Gris, his 2013 feature film was funded by the Chadian government. Still, the beginnings of this filmmaker in his home country of Chad were tumultuous. Under a dictatorial regime, Selah-Haroun and his family were forced to flee Chad 35 years ago, first to Cameroon and then to Paris. It was in France that he seized the opportunity to study film.
Fast-forward to 2017, Mahamat Saleh Haroun has revamped cinema and film-making in Chad. Recently, he was appointed Minister of Culture, Art and Tourism by Chadian President, Idriss Deby. Despite living in France for several decades, Chad has remained home for Mahamat Saleh Haroun as most of his films and documentaries have been set in this West African country. Abouna was Saleh-Haroun’s first film screened in Chad and he describes the experience in this article. There were Chadians lined up at the door, eager to watch, but they could not afford to buy a ticket.
For the man who has been credited with putting Chad on the film map, 56-year old Mahamat Saleh Haman now holds the reins to transform arts and culture in Chad. In his words, “if I had just one dollar, I would try to make a good movie, one that told the story of my people and one that tried to be a work of art.”
