Jean-Claude Rahaga

An educated native of Mauritania tries to find work in Paris but encounters difficulty because of his race.

An episode of the educational TV series "En profil dans le texte" directed by Rohmer, on the French philosopher Blaise Pascal, the subject of debate in Rohmer's film "My Night at Maud’s."

This documentary shows how cinema has been used very differently in three neighbouring African countries with different colonial heritages: Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Madagascar. Mozambique used cinema newsreels as a crucial propaganda tool after the Portugese colonisers left. Madagascar boycotted US movies, so its screens were dominated by French, Indian and Hong Kong films instead. But a few films managed to get made. The situation in Zimbabwe was the worst, except that alone of the three countries it possessed an efficient film laboratory.