Zalika Souley

Zalika Souley (7 October 1947 – 27 July 2021[1]) was a Nigerien actress, the first sub-Saharan movie actress,[2] and one of the pioneering actresses of African cinema.[3]

Zalika Souley
Born7 October 1947
Died27 July 2021
NationalityNigerian
Occupationactress
Years active1947 - 2021
Notable workLe Retour d'un aventurier

Life

Aged 19, Zalika played the lead female role in Moustapha Alassane's 1966 film Le Retour d'un aventurier. Most of her later work was for Oumarou Ganda: Cabascabo (1968), Le Wazzou polygame (1971), Saïtane (1972) and L'Exilé (1980). She also acted in Moustapha Alassane's Women Cars Villas Money (1972), in Yeo Kozoloa's Petanqui (1983) and Djingarey Maïga's Aube noire (1983).[2]

Zalika enjoyed the trappings of wealth and fame, achieving notoriety for public behaviour then considered provocative, such as dressing in trousers.[4] However, the Nigerien film industry declined from the 1980s onwards. Rahmatou Keïta's 2004 documentary Al'lessi... An African Actress portrays Souley's life.[5] By the time Keïta made her film, Souley and her four children were living in a two-roomed house in Niamey, without food or water. The film ended with the information that Zalika was now in Europe working as a maid, after she was forced to emigrate in 2000.[4][6]

References
  1. Zalika Souley, doyenne of African cinema, dies at 74
  2. Abdourahmane Idrissa; Samuel Decalo (2012). "Souley, Zalika". Historical Dictionary of Niger. Scarecrow Press. p. 418. ISBN 978-0-8108-7090-1.
  3. Gbadamassi, Falila (15 November 2019). "Les comédiennes africaines ont désormais leur association après une assemblée historique en Côte d'Ivoire" [African actresses now have their association after a historic assembly in the Ivory Coast] (in French). France Info. Cette assemblée et cette 8e édition du Festilag ont été l'occasion de rendre hommage aux actrices pionnières du cinéma africain [...] la Nigérienne Zalika Souley [This assembly and this 8th edition of Festilag were an opportunity to pay tribute to the pioneering actresses of African cinema [...] the Nigerien Zalika Souley]
  4. Yaba Badoe, Women at Ouagadougou: Yaba Badoe talks to three women directors at this year's Fespaco, Feminist Africa, Issue 4, 2005.
  5. Audrey Thomas McCluskey (2007). Frame by Frame III: A Filmography of the African Diasporan Image, 1994-2004. Indiana University Press. p. 30. ISBN 0-253-34829-3.
  6. Regnier, Isabelle (16 November 2010). ""Al'lèèssi" : le destin d'une actrice africaine" ["Al'lèèssi": the fate of an African actress]. Le Monde (in French).

Further reading
  • Aly N'keury N'daw, 'Zalika, star des films nigériens / Zalika: star of Niger films', Ecrans d'Afrique / African Screen, Vol. 2, No. 5-6 (1993), pp. 28–31.
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