Richard De Medeiros

Richard De Medeiros (1937–2017) was a Beninese film director.

Biography Richard De Medeiros was born in 1937 in Ouidah, died in 2017 in Nanterre and studied literature in Cotonou and Paris. It looked at Béhanzin, the last king of Dahomey, exiled by the French colonial powers to Martinique. His short film Teke, Hymne au Borgou reappropriated ethnographic codes of filmmaking, blending them with elements of oral tradition and griot narrative style. The Newcomer (1976) was Benin's second feature film. It focussed on the clash between Senou, a corrupt civil servant, and Ahouenou, a newcomer who wants to clean things up. After Senou resorts to witchcraft and Agouenou suffers an accident, Agouenou tries to gain acceptance by undergoing magical initiation. In the early 1980s he was interviewed by Pierre Haffner, participating in the debates among African filmmakers about the extent to which Jean Rouch's cinematic practice escaped its colonial context.

In 1980 he was filmed as a subject for Gérard Courant's Cinématon.

Films Le Roi est mort en exil (The King died in exile). Short documentary, 1970. Teke, hymne au Borgou (Teke, hymn to the Borgou). Short documentary, 1972. Silence et feu de brousse (Silence and bushfire). Short fiction film, 1972 Le nouveau venu (The newcomer). Feature-length fiction film, 1976