Guest Post by Lara N. Dotson-Renta
Paris has always been renowned for its culture and support of the arts. Yet, as France has grown into an ever more pluralistic society, the traditional image of what constitutes art in France must evolve as well. Younger generations of artists, many immigrants of African origin, are now reconfiguring the arts in France on their own terms. Their artistic production embodies experiences of travel and adaptation via the integration of the cultures and traditions of their respective countries of origins along with aesthetic and quotidian experiences that reflect daily life in France. Particularly in the realm of music and film, the blending of African tradition with French popular culture and youth genres has fostered a vibrant arts scene that, while initially seen as of/from the margins of both society and the arts scene, is actually renewing ‘mainstream’ culture in dramatic ways. You just have to scan the pop music featured in Hinda Talhaoui’s Paris is a Continent Series on AIAC. One proponent of this new artistic vision is Alain Kasanda (Apkass), a Franco-Congolese musician, spoken word artist, and founder of the O’rigines Foundation and the Ghett’Out Francophone Film Festival. I interviewed Alain at the Trinity College International Hip-Hop Festival held in Hartford, CT, in March earlier this year. [Read more...]
Parisian Africa: The artistic intersections of the Métropole
Soviet cinema and African filmmaking
A still from 'October' - Idrissa and Irina
In a scene from October (1991) – one of Abderrahmane Sissako’s first films – a young West African student named Idrissa crouches to the ground in a Moscow park, and presses a handful of snow against his face. It’s a baptism of sorts: an immersion into the starkness of black and white, the colour restrictions of Sissako’s low budget production visually reflecting the strict demarcations between races in then-contemporary Russia. Nothing speaks clearer of the racial divide than the white frozen ground pressed against Idrissa’s face, a face blackened and scratched by the now-degraded 16mm. [Read more...]
Classic African Films N°1: ‘Xala’ by Ousmane Sembène
opening title for Xala
We hope to build an archive of reviews of classic films in African cinema to build a resource, but also to help readers learn more about the history of different film cultures on the African continent. Where possible, we’ll link to where you can watch/rent/see them, in a bid to get more people to see the films. If you have any suggestions, please comment below this review. We’ll start with a bang: Ousmane Sembène’s “Xala.” Before we begin, here’s the entire film on Youtube:
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19th New York African Film Festival: Shorts!
Short films sometimes get a bad rap — they’re considered a “learning exercise” for film school students, or worse, they’re made synonymous with boring, pretentious art house… stuff. This year’s matinee trio at NYAFF had some fun with these stereotypes. Osvalde Lewat’s ‘Sderot, Last Exit’ is an experimental documentary that follows student filmmakers as they put together films on the fault lines of the Gaza War. There is some meta film commentary on the camera as a dream, which might be beautiful or tedious. But if you focus on its seamlessly shifting perspectives, it’s hard to deny the film’s elegant edge. Even when it gains a coherent narrative structure through realist montage, each new character seems to direct his or her own part of the story. ‘Sderot’ stands as an energizing invitation to consider how truth is made through mediated images. Kudos too, to the festival’s selection committee for highlighting the work of the Cameroonian director in Palestine. Smart curation gives breadth as well as depth to what we recognize as African filmmaking. [Read more...]
Interview: Director Frances Bodomo Talks About Her Film “Boneshaker” and African Globalization
“Boneshaker” — the latest film by Nuotama Frances Bodomo, a Ghanaian filmmaker based in New York City — follows a Ghanaian immigrant family taking a road trip to a Pentecostal church in Louisiana to cure their violent daughter. As the family journeys to a tent revival at the ends of the levee-less Louisiana delta, they discover the complications of trying to perform a traditional ritual away from home. Boneshaker is a short but ambitious film that focuses on feelings of homelessness, landlessness, and rootlessness that accompany migration. I spoke with Frances Bodomo at the start of the 2012 New York African Film Festival.
19th New York African Film Festival: “The Education of Auma Obama”
Republican Party propaganda wants to paint President Barack Obama’s Kenyan family as alien to America. In this propaganda Kenyans are reduced to anti-American zealots. The propaganda especially play up refer to his father Barack Hussein Obama Snr’s supposed “anti-colonial” and left-wing biases. (What is conveniently forgotten is that Obama Snr. is a product of elite American education–he studied economics at Harvard.) Yet the strongest impression one gets from the Obama family in director Branwen Okpako’s beautiful, and substantive documentary of Obama’s half sister, Auma Obama, is how familiar and American (including some of the values Republicans proffer of hard work and guile), the Obamas are. At the same time it is clear that Obama’s strengths–his intellectual sharpness, charisma and drive, can be traced to this branch of his family. These qualities seem present especially in Obama’s father and sister Auma. (Barack and Auma Obama’s grandfather Hussein Onyango, a colonial cook, freedom fighter and oral historian, also emerges as a key influence.)
The 19th New York African Film Festival: “Relentless”
“Relentless” is fundamentally a film about Lagos. About how director Andy Okoarafor sees it. In Okoarafor’s rendering, Lagos is a hard, inhospitable city, where people look stressed out, always hustling. They’re always on the move. But Okoarafor also has loves this city. At the film’s heart is the strong-jawed lead character Oba, played by Gideon Okeke, who spends most of his driving and walking around the city–its clogged highways, in its churches and beach bars. He is a former peacekeeper, back from Sierra Leone, where his wife, a local woman, was brutally murdered by rebel soldiers. Emotionally scarred, he returns to Nigeria where he now runs a security company protecting politicians and other important people. On one of his wanderings, he saves a prostitute (played by singer Nneka Egbuna) who fell off a bridge–she was pushed by people who want her dead. She wants Oba to help her find her friend, another prostitute, who has gone missing after entertaining some politicians and generals. Oba realizes that his new clients may be involved.
The 19th New York African Film Festival: ‘Maami’
The secret to making a good movie about sport is to make sure there isn’t any sport in it. Remember ‘Invictus‘? Remember ‘Goal‘? Exactly. Distinguished Nigerian filmmaker Tunde Kelani must have known this, because there isn’t any sport in his film, ‘Maami’, even though his hero, Kashy (Wole Ojo), is a global footballing superstar who plays for Arsenal.
The 19th New York African Film Festival: ‘Black Africa, White Marble’
From the opening scenes of Black Africa, White Marble, we learn that Brazzaville, in Republic of Congo, is the only capital in Africa to still carry the name of a European. While Pietro Savorgnan di Brazza’s far more famous contemporary, Henry “Dr. David Livingston, I presume” Stanley, is remembered as the handmaiden who ushered in King Leopold II’s barbarity, this film’s near-hagiographic treatment of Brazza’s life reveals a different direction that the relationship between Africa and Europe might have traversed. [Read more...]
The 19th New York African Film Festival: April 11-17
This film festival–still the premier site for African film in New York City and on the US east coast–opens tonight at Lincoln Center with a showing of “Mama Africa,” the 2011 documentary by Finnish director Mika Kaurismäki about the life of singer Miriam Makeba “who brought South African music to the world.” The well structured documentary, a celebration of Makeba’s life, is a mix of archived video footage, and interviews with some of her closest family associates (her grandchildren Nelson Lumumba Lee and Zenzi Monique Lee, former husband Hugh Masekela and musicians Sipho Mabuse, Abigail Kubeka, Angelique Kidjo and Dorothy Masuku.) Other films include “Relentless” (see our review on Friday) “How to steal 2 million,” ‘Playing Warriors” and “Restless City.” The detailed program (and tickets) can be accessed here. Africa is a Country is reviewing a selection of films from the festival (see our timeline). And on Saturday afternoon (1.30-4pm) we’re co-hosting two panels on “Cinema and Propaganda” in the Frieda and Roy Furman Gallery at Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center. Here’s the details: [Read more...]
