Christian Lara (25 January 1939 – 9 September 2023) was a Guadeloupean film director and producer, screenwriter and cinematographer. Having shot more than twenty feature films in the Caribbean, France, Canada, and Africa, he is regarded by many as "the Father of French Antilles cinema".
Career Lara began his professional career in Paris, France as a journalist for Le Figaro, a French daily newspaper. As of 1973, he turned filmmaker, directing his first movie, Jeu de dames (en: Dames play), starring Georges de Caunes. That same year, following a then Parisian trend for erotic films, Lara directed Les Infidèles (en: The unfaithfulls), from a screenplay written by French erotic films director Daniel Daërt (born Jacques Godaert). The two men renewed their collaboration a year after, Lara working as camera operator on Daërt's ninth porn film, Cours du soir pour monsieur seul (en: Night classes for lonely men).
Lara produced a more personal project with French actor Jacques Weber and newcomer Anne Parillaud: Un Amour de sable (en: Sandy Love), released in 1976.
Aware of the lack of visibility of his fellow Creole people on French movie screens, Lara soon engaged in creating a truly Antillean cinema. In this, he was following the advice legendary cinematographer Ingmar Bergman once gave him, at the time of a three-month stay in Sweden: "Only film what you truly know!"Testimony by Christian Lara at the time of the presentation of Coco la Fleur, candidate for the movies cycle «Images des Outre-mer» at the Cinémathèque française, in Paris (December 2011).
For the first feature of his series of Guadeloupean films, Lara wrote a storyline set during election time in his home island, calling upon Guadeloupean actors Greg Germain (at the time the new star of Médecins de nuit, a French medical drama television series) and Robert Liensol (an experienced movie actor) to star in the film. Overcoming ambient scepticism and the many difficulties attached to its production, Coco la Fleur, candidate was released on 14 February 1979,Doc-file for "Coco la Fleur, candidate" on Encyclociné and received acclaim both in continental France and its overseas dependencies.
Several films followed, among them Mamito, the portrayal of a grandmother caught in the social inadequacies of a former French overseas colony that became a full-fledged department of France. Released in 1980, the movie was already raising issues that would be brought up 30 years later during Guadeloupe's 2009 general strike.
Lara was deliberately striving to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, Oruno Lara (1879–1924), who was Guadeloupe's first historian of African descent, in featuring the history of the Caribbean,archive : Mention of Oruno Lara's work in Negritude by Nick Nesbitt, in. geocities.com, African Writers, 18 March 2001. as is apparent from Christian Lara's subsequent historical feature films. First, in Vivre libre ou mourir (en: Live Free or Die Hard), Oruno Lara is credited as original screenwriter.Oruno Lara on the Internet Movie Database Secondly, Lara himself acknowledges his grandfather's heritage in 1998 when (en: Bittersweet) is released; and again in 2004, when 1802, l'Épopée guadeloupéenne premiered in France on 10 May, the very day of the National Celebration of the Abolition of Slavery. Several of his recent films, such as The Legend and Summer in Provence feature French actress Mi Kwan Lock in the leading roles.
Death Lara died on 9 September 2023, at the age of 84.
Filmography as a director Cinema 1973: Jeu de dames 1973: Les Infidèles 1976: Corps brûlants (as Bart Caral) 1977: Un amour de sable 1977: Déchaînements charnels (Make Love With Me) 1979: Coco la Fleur, candidate 1980: Mamito 1980: Chap'la 1980: Vivre libre ou mourir 1982: Une glace avec deux boules... 1983: Adieu foulards 1987: Black 1993: Une Sacrée chabine 1998: 2004: 1802, l'Épopée guadeloupéenne 2004: Cracking Up 2010: Héritage perdu 2011: Tout est encore possible 2011: 2012: The Legend 2012: Summer in Provence 2016: Esclave et courtisane 2024: L'homme au âton (released posthumously)
Television 2009: Le Mystère Joséphine
Awards, nominations and distinctions 1999 – FESPACO's Paul Robeson African Diaspora best film award for Sucre Amer, (Burkina Faso).List of FESPACO award winners#16th FESPACO (1999)
References
External links
Christian Lara on Encyclociné . Caraibe-Films Official website