| Cinema of Africa |
The term African cinema refers to the film production in Africa, following formal independence. Some of the countries in North Africa (such as the cinema of Egypt, for example) developed a national film industry much earlier and are related to West Asian cinema. Often, African Cinema also includes directors from among the African diaspora.
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During the colonial era, Africa was represented exclusively by Western filmmakers. The continent was portrayed as an exotic land without history or culture. Examples of this kind of cinema abound and include jungle epics such as Tarzan and The African Queen, and various adaptations of H. Rider Haggard's 1885 novel titled King Solomon's Mines.[1] In the mid-1930s, the Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment was carried out in order to educate the Bantu peoples.[2]
In the French colonies Africans were, by law, not permitted to make films of their own. This ban was known as the "Laval Decree".[3] In 1955, however, Paulin Soumanou Vieyra - originally from Benin, but educated in Senegal - along with his colleagues from Le Group Africain du Cinema, shot a short film in Paris by the name of Afrique Sur Seine (1955). Vieyra was trained in filmmaking at the prestigious Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinematographique (IDHEC) in Paris, and in spite of the ban on filmmaking in Africa, was granted permission to make a film in France.[4] Afrique Sur Seine explores the difficulties of being an African in France during the 1950s and is considered to be the first film directed by a black African.[5]
Before independence, only a few anti-colonial films were produced. Examples include Les statues meurent aussi by Chris Marker and Alain Resnais about European robbery of African art (which was banned by the French for 10 years[6]) and Afrique 50 by René Vauthier about anti-colonial riots in Côte d'Ivoire and in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso).[7]
Also doing film work in Africa during this time was the French Ethnographic filmmaker, Jean Rouch. Rouch's work has been controversial amongst both French and African audiences. With films like Jaguar (1955), Les maitres fous (1955), Moi, un noir (1958), and La pyramide humaine (1959), Rouch made documentaries that were not explicitly anti-colonial, but which challenged many received notions about colonial Africa and gave a new voice to Africans through film.[8] Although Rouch has been accused by Ousmane Sembene - and others[9] - as being someone who looks at Africans "as if they are insects," Rouch was an important figure in the early development of African film and was the first person to work with several Africans who would go on to have important careers in African cinema (Oumarou Ganda, Safi Faye, and Moustapha Alassane, to name a few).[10]
Because most of the films prior to independence were egregiously racist in nature, African filmmakers of the independence era - like Ousmane Sembene and Oumarou Ganda, amongst others - saw filmmaking as an important political tool for rectifying the erroneous image of Africans put forward by Western filmmakers and for reclaiming the image of Africa for Africans.[11]
The first African film to win international recognition was Ousmane Sembène's La Noire de... also known as Black Girl. It showed the despair of an African woman who has to work as a maid in France. The writer Sembène had turned to cinema to reach a wider audience. He is still considered to be the 'father' of African Cinema. Sembène's native country Senegal continued to be the most important place of African film production for more than a decade.
With the of the African film festival FESPACO in Burkina Faso in 1969, African film created its own forum. FESPACO now takes place every two years in alternation with the film festival Carthago in (Tunisia).
The Federation of African Filmmakers (FEPACI) was formed in 1969 in order to focus attention on the promotion of African film industries in terms of production, distribution and exhibition. From its inception, FEPACI was seen as a critical partner organization to the OAU, now the AU. FEPACI looks at the role of film in the politico-economic and cultural development of African states and the continent as a whole.
Med Hondo's Soleil O, shot in 1969, was immediately recognized. No less politically engaged than Sembène, he chose a more controversial filmic language to show what it means to be a stranger in France with the 'wrong' skin colour.
Souleymane Cissé's Yeelen (Mali 1987) and Cheick Oumar Sissoko's Guimba (Mali 1995) were well received in the west. Some critics criticized the filmmakers for adapting to the exotic tastes of western audiences
Many films of the 1990s, e.g. Quartier Mozart by Jean-Pierre Bekolo (Cameroon 1992), are situated in the globalized African metropolis.
A first African Film Summit took place in South Africa in 2006. It was followed by FEPACI 9th Congress.
Nollywood, a colloquial term for Nigerian Cinema, is a growing and commercially viable industry.
African cinema focuses on social and political themes rather than any commercial interests, and is an exploration of the conflicts between the traditional past and modern times. The political approach of African film makers is clearly evident in the Charte du cinéaste africain (Charta of the African cinéaste) which the union of African film makers FEPACI adopted in Algiers in 1975.
The filmmakers start by recalling the neocolonial condition of African societies. "The situation contemporary African societies live in is one in which they are dominated on several levels: politically, economically and culturally." African filmmakers stressed their solidarity with progressive filmmakers in other parts of the world. African cinema is often seen a part of Third Cinema.
Some African filmmakers, for example Ousmane Sembène, try to give back African history to African people by remembering the resistance to European and Islamic domination.
The role of the African filmmaker is often compared to traditional Griots. Like them their task is to express and reflect communal experiences. Patterns of African oral literature often recur in African films. African film has also been influenced by traditions from other continents such as Italian neorealism, Brazilian Cinema Novo and the theatre of Bertolt Brecht.
Ethnologist and filmmaker Safi Faye was the first African woman film director to gain international recognition.
In 1972, Sarah Maldoror had shot her film Sambizanga about the 1961-1974 war in Angola. Surviving African women of this war are the subject of the Documentary Les oubliées (The forgotten), made by Anne-Laure Folly twenty years later.
In 2008, Manouchka Kelly Labouba became the first woman to direct a fictional film in the history of Gabon. Her short film, Le Divorce, addresses the clash between modern and traditional values and its impact on a young Gabonese couple’s attempt to divorce.
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