The Bamboula Village (2022) is a documentary film directed by Yoann de Montgrand and François Tchernia, narrated by Jean-Pascal Zadi. Thirty years ago, Ivorian artisans, dancers, and musicians worked and lived at the African Safari park in Port-Saint-Père, near Nantes. They were isolated and exploited within the "Bamboula Village," a kind of modern-day human zoo, which sparked mobilization by local associations. Founded in 1992 by Monique and Dany Laurent, the African Safari park in Port-Saint-Père, in the Pays de Retz region, about thirty kilometers from Nantes, was intended to be "a dream day for visitors, discovering wild animals," according to Dany Laurent. The Regional and Departmental councils funded this project, which aimed to become the leading tourist destination in the Pays de la Loire region, potentially creating jobs in a struggling area. Two years later, the park's director returned from Ivory Coast with a new idea: to recreate a traditional Ivorian village within the park, with its mud and straw huts, to be inhabited by artisans, musicians, and dancers from the country. A partnership was established with the Ivorian authorities, who saw it as an opportunity to promote tourism in Ivory Coast. The project was sponsored by the Saint-Michel biscuit company, which was then marketing a chocolate biscuit called Bamboula. A giant statue of its mascot, a young black boy wearing a leopard-print loincloth, was erected at the entrance. The "Bamboula Village" was born. In the cold spring of March 1994, about twenty men, women, and children arrived in Port-Saint-Père. Subject to Ivorian labor law, not French law, they would only earn a quarter of the French minimum wage. This situation alerted the CGT union for musicians and artists, which requested a meeting with management. "We then realized that the problem was much more serious," reports Philippe Gautier, a union member at the time. The first surprising thing we learned was that the Ivorian workers were not allowed to leave the factory grounds. "The manager told us, 'Everything is under control; I have their passports.''

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