Med Hondo Movies and Career Information

Med Hondo (born Mohamed Abid Hondo, 1936) is a Mauritanian film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and voice actor. He emigrated to France in 1959 and began to work in film during the 1960s. He received critical acclaim for his 1967 directorial début Soleil O. Hondo was born in 1936 in Ain Oul Beri Mathar in the Atar region of Mauritania. His mother was Mauritanian and his father Senegalese. In 1954 he went to live in Rabat, Morocco to train to become a chef at the International Hotel School there. He emigrated to France in 1959 and found work first in Marseilles and then in Paris, variously as a cook, farm labourer, waiter, dockworker and delivery man. He found that he, and other African immigrants, were unable to find jobs in their chosen professions, and in the menial jobs they could find, were paid less than the French. The difficulty of making a living during this time, as well as racism he experienced, eventually provided inspiration for his films, including Soleil O and Les 'bicots-Nègres' vos voisins. Hondo began to take classes in acting and directing, and studied under French actress Françoise Rosay, acting in classic plays by Shakespeare, Molière and Jean Racine. He