Tag

This early colour film by the French cinematographer Alfred Machin was shot in Central Africa in 1909. It exemplifies the genre of the hunting film, an early forerunner of the wildlife genre. This type of film enabled audiences to experience the dangerous recesses of the ‘dark continent’ from the safety of the movie theatre.

French director Alfred Machin (1877-1929) was sent to Belgium by the French firm Pathé in 1912 to start up a film studio, Belge-Cinéma-Film. Next to his magnum opus, Maudite soit la guerre (1913), he made over twenty short and medium length films. In order to cater for local audiences, he gave his films a certain couleur locale. This is obvious in his short films Saïda a enlevé Manneken Pis (Saïda stole Manneken Pis,