Inventing Cinema: Moustapha Alassane + Georges Mélies

The invention of cinema was not a singular moment, but a series of parallel discoveries across the globe. Honoring the national film cultures of Niger and France, Inventing Cinema reintroduces the medium through two of its pioneering magicians.

During the moving image’s nascent period, Georges Méliès bridged the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with fantastical experiments of theatricality and spectacle. Drawing on his background as an actor and illusionist, the French filmmaker invented editing techniques that continue to inform modern movie creation. Decades later, the autodidact Alassane Moustapha’s precocious childhood puppet shows and shadow plays laid the foundation for an improvised reinvention of cinema. Moustapha made films before ever seeing a camera, but eventually received formal training that led to a wayward and whimsical filmography of trenchant political satires, animated fables, and imaginative transpositions of oral storytelling.

Illusions fantasmagoriques (1898) Dir. Georges Mélies, 1min
L'illusionniste fin de siècle, ou L’impressionniste fin de siècle (1899) Dir. Georges Mélies, 1 min
La lanterne magique (1903) Dir. Georges Mélies, 5min
Le dirigeable fantastique (1905) Dir. Georges Mélies, 3min
Le magician (1889) Dir. Georges Mélies, 1min
Le mélomane (1903) Dir. Georges Mélies, 3min
Le voyage dans la lune (1902) Dir. Georges Mélies, 15min
Les illusions fantaisistes (1909) Dir. Georges Mélies, 5min
Sorcellerie culinaire (1904) Dir. Georges Mélies, 4min
Un homme de têtes (1889) Dir. Georges Mélies, 1min
Bon Voyage, Sim (1966) Dir. Moustapha Alassane, 5min
Kokoa (2001) Dir. Moustapha Alassane, 14min
La mort de Gandji (1965) Dir. Moustapha Alassane, 5min
Samba le Grand (1977) Dir. Moustapha Alassane, 14min