Hondo, Med

(Abid Mohamed Medoun Hondo / May 4, 1936, Ai N Ouled Beni Mathar, Mauritania-)

   He learned cooking at the International Hotel School of Rabat, Morocco. Having settled in France in 1959, he worked as a longshoreman and a cook in Marseille before moving to Paris, where he attended Françoise Rosay's acting courses. He performed many classic plays and took part in the creation of the Comité africain des Cinéastes. In 1966, he founded his own theatrical group, Griotshango. Seen as an actor in several movies (1967 Un Homme de trop / Il 13° uomo / UK and USA: Shock Troops, Costa-Gavras, France / Italy; 1968 Tante Zita / USA: Zita, Robert Enrico; 1969 A Walk with Love and Death, John Huston, USA), he made his directing debut in 1967. His voice is prob­ably more familiar to French audiences than his face. He dubbed most of the black American actors of the 1970s and 1980s (Gregg Morris, Fred Williamson, Ernie Hudson, Gregory Hines, Tony Todd, Harry Bela-fonte, Morgan Freeman, and Eddie Murphy).

 Filmography

1967 ◘ Balade aux sources (short; also screenwriter)

1969 ◘ Roi des Cordes (short; also screenwriter)

        ◘ Partout ailleurs peut-être nulle part (short; also screenwriter)

1973 ◘ Soleil O (also screenwriter, dialogist; France / Mauritania; shot in 1969)

        ◘ Mes Voisins (short; also screenwriter)

1974 ◘ Les "Bicots-Nègres", vos Voisins (also screenwriter, dialogist, producer; France / Mauritania)

1977 ◘ Nous aurons toute la Mort pour dormir (documentary; also screenwriter, producer, co-editor; France / Mauritania; shot in 1975)

1979 ◘ La Faim du Monde / Sahel, la Faim pourquoi? (documentary; co-director with Théo Robi-chet; shot in 1975)

        ◘ West Indies, les Nègres marrons de la Lib­erté (also screenwriter, adapter, co-producer; France / Mauritania)

1986 ◘ Sarraounia (also dialogist, producer; France / Mauritania)

1994 ◘ Lumière noire (also screenwriter)

1998 ◘ Watani, un Monde sans Mal / Watani (also screenwriter, France / Mauritania)

2004 ◘ Fatima, l'Algérienne de Dakar (short; also screenwriter)