When Julia Roberts attended the French Césars this March, Jean-Pascal Zadi was given the task of introducing the Erin Brockovich Oscar-winning actress.
The comic actor and director had Roberts in fits as he drew comparisons between their big toothy smiles and explained she could apply for political asylum if she were feeling the heat back home, suggesting she could get tips from actor Abou Sangaré, who was sitting a few seats behind.
Guinea-born Sangaré, who won Cannes’ Un Certain Regard Best Actor prize in 2024 for his performance as an undocumented migrant in Souleymane’s Story and would be feted with Best Male Revelation that evening, had just escaped deportation from France after securing a work permit in January.
The tone of the humor was typical of Zadi, who four years previously also won Best Male Revelation for Simply Black, his riotously, impolitically correct comedy tackling the experiences of Black people in France.
Zadi’s spot at the César Awards as well as his starring role in a skit-based trailer promoting the 50th edition, suggest he is now part of mainstream French culture.
“I like the fact that you say that because I still feel a bit on the margins,” says Zadi.
This comes as a surprise given his recent achievements which include the Netflix series Represent, which he created with Lupin writer François Uzan, and stars in as a youth leader who runs to become France’s first Black president, as well as roles in films such as Final Cut, Smoking Causes Coughing, Beating Hearts, Dog on Trial and most recently Prosper.
One of 10 siblings, Zadi was born in the Paris suburb of Bondy in 1980 to parents hailing from the Ivory Coast. He grew up in the Normandy port city of Caen.
“We were the only Black family. There wasn’t segregation but we lived some difficult things,” says Zadi. “My mother anchored in us from very early on the fact that we were Black and that that was going to turn our destinies upside-down.”
“She would make us watch films like Cry Freedom and A Dry White Season. She introduced us to Black culture and the fact that we were going to have to fight in life. When I was small, with my brothers, we found her a bit crazy,” he continues.
As a student, Zadi came to realize his mother had prepared him well, after a shop-owner, advertising a vacancy in the window for which he was qualified, denied they were looking for someone when he walked in off the street to enquire.
“That day, the penny dropped,” recalls Zadi. “I understood that rather than asking for things, I was going to have to act.”
He bought a camera on credit and made his first documentary Des halls aux bacs, about the French rap scene.
“It came out on DVD in 2005, and I haven’t stopped since,” he says. “I understood what I was capable of.”
He followed the documentary with ultra-low budget features Cramé, African Gangster and Sans pudeur ni morale, at the same time as breaking into television as a contributor on the Canal+ show Le before du grand journal.
Zadi reveals he bluffed his way through the pitch for Simply Black, suggesting he had secured the participation of stars such as Omar Sy, Eric Judor and Fabrice Eboué when he had not even approached them at that point.
“I signed the contract, and I was in a panic… I hadn’t even written a scene for Omar Sy. He was working in the U.S., while I was an unknown. I wrote a scene anyway and sent it to his agent. One night he calls me, it was about midnight, I was in bed, and he says, ‘Your film, we’re going to make it. We’re going to show them we’re united.’”
Zadi suggests that the project struck a chord with the roster of French Black actors who signed up for the film.
“Black French identity hasn’t been tackled that much. We talk a lot about Black American identity, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, segregation, while French Black identity is tied up with colonization, which brings us together, but also separates us at the same time,” he says.
Zadi is now gearing up for the June release of Abidjan-shot feature Le grand déplacement, about a space mission with an all-African crew, and developing an adaptation of Boris Vian’s novel I Spit On Your Graves, about a Black man in the U.S., whose white complexion allows him to cross racial barriers, to be set in the French Antilles.
Zadi says questions of French Black identity are likely to remain at the heart of his work.
“Unfortunately, or fortunately, the fact of being Black and living in France has marked me deeply and for now, this is what is easiest for me to recount, these visceral things I have lived,” he says.
The post ‘Simply Black’ Filmmaker Jean-Pascal Zadi Aims To Break Down More Barriers: “Being Black And Living In France Has Marked Me Deeply” appeared first on Deadline.
