Tout simplement noir, by Jean-Pascal Zadi and John Wax
Within the programming of
Mati Diop’s favourites
For the October Contemporary Cinema programme, French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop selects a hilarious comedy about the search for black identity in France.
| Target audience: | General public |
| Location: | Sala Audiovisual |
| Price: | 4€ |
Tout simplement noir, by Jean-Pascal Zadi and John Wax. France, 2020. 90 min.
“When we discovered Jean Pascal Zadi’s Tout simplement noir in cinemas, many of us asked ourselves the same question: How did he manage to make and release such a film in today’s France? I don’t know if he’s ahead of his time, or if it is France that is behind, but what is clear is that this film could not have been made before and will never be made again, because it is contemporary by definition, and simply inimitable in its approach to the experience of ‘being black’.“ Mati Diop.
JP is a 40-year-old failed actor who decides to organise the first big black protest march in France. But his often burlesque encounters with influential figures in the community, and the interested support he receives from Fary, make him waver between a desire for the limelight and a true activist commitment.
Jean-Pascal Zadi (Seine-Saint-Denis, 1980) is a French director, actor, film producer and rapper of Ivorian origin. He initially started out as a musician with the group La Cellule. In 2005 he began directing and presented the documentary Des halls aux bacs, about independent French rap. He then directed three films of his own production between 2008 and 2011: Cramé (2008); African Gangster (2010); and Sans pudeur ni morale (2011). Released in cinemas in 2020, the comedy Tout simplement noir won him the César Award for Best New Actor. In 2022 he starred in several films, including Quentin Dupieux’s Smoking Causes Coughing and The Year of the Shark.
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