Archive of films Woman with the Knife / La femme au couteau

Ivory Coast
1969, 80 min

Section: Tribute to The Film Foundation
Year: 2021

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. 


Synopsis

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

Restored in 2019 by Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata and The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project. Funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. This restoration is part of the African Film Heritage Project, created by The Film Foundation, FEPACI and UNESCO – in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna – to help locate, restore, and disseminate African cinema.

About the director

Timité Bassori

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).

Contacts

Cineteca di Bologna
Via dell'Industria 2, 40138, Bologna
Italy
Tel: +39 051 601 8607
E-mail: [email protected]

About the film

Black & white, DCP

Section: Tribute to The Film Foundation
   
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
YouTube

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