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africanfilm

new forms of aesthetics and politics

pRESTELMUNICH BERLIN LONDON NEW YORK

manthia diawara

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In memoriam Samba Félix Ndiaye, Adama Drabo, Désiré Écaré, Ousmane Sembène

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Table of Contents

Foreword Bernd M. Scherer ........................................... 0 1 5

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African Film New Forms of Aesthetics and Politics

Manthia Diawara

Chapter 1: Ouagadougou ................................. 0 1 8

Chapter 2: BerlinAfrican Cinema—Foreign Aid as Tarzanism .............. 0 7 1

The New African Cinema Wave .......................... 0 9 0

A. The Arte Wave ............................................ 1 0 0

B. La Guilde des Cinéastes: The Independent Spirit ................... 1 2 0

and the Pursuit of a Pan-African Cinema

C. The New Popular African Cinema .............................. 1 3 8

Chapter 3: Nollywood Popular Cinema and the New Social Imaginary

Mobility in Africa ........................................ 1 6 2

Toward a Narratological Approach to Nollywood Videos .. 1 7 5

Epilogue ........................................................... 1 8 6

Acknowledgments .................................................... 1 9 1

References ........................................................... 1 9 4

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Visions of a New African Cinema

African Cinema, Post-colonialism and the Aesthetic Strategies of Representation .......................................... 1 9 6

A panel discussion with Manthia Diawara, Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda, Jean-Pierre Bekolo, Cheick Fantamady Camara and Mama Keïta

“Look, I am not francophone” ........................................ 2 4 1

Newton Aduaka talks about the differences between British and French film production

“I could go to Hollywood, where it’s dog eat dog, or I could stay in South Africa, where it’s dog eat nothing” ........... 2 4 6

Zola Maseko talks about film production in South Africa

“Nollywood was actually a reaction by people who had nothing to do with film” ..................................... 2 5 0

Jahman Anikulapo talks about the Nollywood phenomenon

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Filmographies

Newton I. Aduaka: Ezra ............................................... 2 5 8

John Akomfrah: Testament ............................................. 2 6 0

Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda: Juju Factory ................................ 2 6 2

Jean-Pierre Bekolo: Les saignantes ...................................... 2 6 4

Cheick Fantamady Camara: Il va pleuvoir sur Conakry .................. 2 6 6

Souleymane Cissé: Finyé – le vent ...................................... 2 6 8

Issa Serge Coelo: DP 75—Tartina City .................................. 2 7 0

Adama Drabo: Taafe Fanga ............................................ 2 7 2

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Gahité Fofana: Un matin bonne heure.................................... 2 7 4

Zézé Gamboa: O Herói ................................................ 2 7 6

Haile Gerima: Teza..................................................... 2 7 8

Flora Gomes: Po di sangui ............................................. 2 8 0

Mahamat-Saleh Haroun: Daratt – saison sèche .......................... 2 8 2

Gavin Hood: Tsotsi .................................................... 2 8 4

Mama Keïta: Le fleuve.................................................. 2 8 6

Tunde Kelani: Thunderbolt ............................................. 2 8 8

Wanjiru Kinyanjui: Bahati ............................................. 2 9 0

Zola Maseko: Drum ................................................... 2 9 2

Fanta Régina Nacro: La nuit de la verité ................................. 2 9 4

Cheikh A. Ndiaye: L’appel des arènes ................................... 2 9 6

Katy Lena Ndiaye: En attendant les hommes ............................ 2 9 8

Samba Félix Ndiaye: Lettre à Senghor .................................. 3 0 0

Chris Obi Rapu: Living in Bondage ..................................... 3 0 2

Moussa Sène Absa: Tableau Ferraille .................................... 3 0 4

Abderrahmane Sissako: Bamako........................................ 3 0 6

Mansour Sora Wade: Ndeysaan – le prix du pardon ...................... 3 0 8

Ramadan Suleman: Zulu Love Letter ................................... 3 1 0

Jihan el-Tahri: Cuba – une odyssée africaine .............................. 3 1 2

Jean-Marie Téno: Le malentendu colonial ................................ 3 1 4

Moussa Touré: TGV ................................................... 3 1 6

S. Pierre Yaméogo: Moi et mon blanc .................................... 3 1 8

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015

Bernd M. Scherer

In 2007, I invited Manthia Diawara to curate a film series on contemporaryAfrican cinema for the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. The series was intended toreview current developments and creative visions in African film today. Theresult was the major festival in autumn 2008 entitled AFRICAN SCREENS. One evening during the festival, I was watching Faro – La reine des eaux (Faro– Goddess of the Waters), the latest film by Salif Traoré. The film explores therelationship between an African village and the river flowing through it. Theriver determines the village’s livelihood and survival, and the villagers worshipFaro, the water spirit. Zanga, the main protagonist, was driven out of the vil-lage as an illegitimate child. Years later, now a qualified engineer, he returnshome—but the river spirit seems angry. The film neither unequivocally favorsthe villagers’ rural world nor the rational world of science and technology; in-stead, it explores the interrelations between them. During the discussion afterwards, a member of the audience roundly criticizedthe film. By showing Africa as traditional and backward, Traoré’s film pre-sented a disastrous picture of Africa. Surely, the kinds of films needed nowhave to focus on the modern, cosmopolitan Africa. Evidently, the audiencemember was taking a stand as an activist for Africa. This scene, though, is typ-ical—and still epitomizes Europe’s relationship to Africa, even today. Pater-nalism has replaced colonial relations. In this kind of Tarzan-Jane syndrome, weare exhorted to help Africans understand themselves and present their image.Yet, motivated by so much good will, people totally overlook how this simplyperpetuates the old asymmetries.African Film—New Forms of Aesthetics and Politics shows just how far Africanfilmmakers are from needing such help. Instead, their primary concern is todevelop their own cinematic language, creating a voice definitely not there tofulfill Western expectations, projections and stereotypes.

Foreword

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F O R E W O R D

There is another dilemma behind the well-meaning attitude illustrated by theaudience member. Such a paternalistic attitude towards the film also stops peo-ple from questioning their own beliefs and values. By not taking the film’s po-sition seriously, the criticism excludes the possibility of learning from thisencounter. It prevents such critics from realizing that the image of Africa theyare trying to save is rooted in European cultural and intellectual history. Theyare propounding a distinct division between the traditional and modernworlds, a belief no doubt equally shared by the majority of Europeans. The in-tellectual foundation of the modern worldview, consciously distancing itselffrom tradition, was laid down during the European Enlightenment. In the con-frontation with this film, the audience member never thought of questioningthis Weltanschauung.In such a situation, both the Western and the African position are robbed oftheir potential: the former loses the chance to see and understand in a new way,while the latter is only lectured from some allegedly higher ground. In con-trast, the AFRICAN SCREENS project and this book were and are the attempt to letAfrican cinema and filmmakers speak for themselves so that both sides canbenefit. Here, first and foremost, I would like to thank Manthia Diawara, whose com-mitment and expertise made this project possible. I would like to thank as wellall the African filmmakers who allowed us a greater insight into their positionsat the series of events in the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. I would also like tothank Doris Hegner, who was responsible for the film and book project for theHaus der Kulturen der Welt, and Martin Hager who oversaw the book’s pub-lication. I am grateful to the German Federal Foreign Office and the Circle ofFriends—House of World Cultures for supporting this publication and, finally,to the Prince Claus Fund and the Organisation Internationale de la Franco-phonie for funding the DVD of interviews with African filmmakers.

Bernd M. Scherer, Director Haus der Kulturen der WeltBerlin, December 2009

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new forms of

aestheticsand

politics

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018

Chapter 1: Ouagadougou

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Manthia Diawara

Ouagadougou, 28th February 2009. I woke up early in the morning, unfazedby the frustrations throughout the previous day and night caused by de-layed flights and a full day wasted in Dakar waiting for my connection. Myplane had landed at 3 a.m. in Dakar, after a seven-hour flight from NewYork; the connecting flight was at 6 p.m., not a.m., as I had thought beforeleaving New York. Stuck, as I was, at a small airport without comfortablechairs or shopping areas to cheat the long hours, I found myself wonderingabout the predicament of modernity and progress in Africa.

You may think that I was simply a frustrated African returning home andthat I had only myself to blame for not reading the schedule on my planeticket properly. And I would have agreed with you, if my 6 p.m. Air Burki-na flight had not been five hours behind schedule. I had been anxious to getto Ouaga by at least 10 or 11 p.m., to check into my hotel quickly, and to stillhave time to go outside to reconnect with old friends and filmmakers fromall over Africa; time to enjoy the nightlife of Ouaga during the festival; timeto see all the nice crowd gathered around the swimming pool at Hôtel In-dépendance; and to be seen by all.

My plane, by arriving once again at 3 a.m., but in another African capitalcity, had spoiled this first night party in Ouaga for me. The hotel too hadsome surprises in store for me. My reservation, made three months earlier,


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was nowhere to be found and the hotel was fully booked. Luckily I knewthe game the receptionists were playing. They had just given rooms to twoWhite men ahead of me, in exchange for an undisclosed dash. So I put mycredit card on the counter and calmly explained to the head receptionist whowas looking at me that it was not the festival that was responsible for mybill; I was paying upfront with my card. The man continued to look at meas if to say, “And then?”

I was too tired to scream, kick around, or signify about corruption andracism. I was also beside myself because of the fatigue caused by sleepless-ness and jetlag. So I shook hands with the man and left a hundred dollar billin his hand. Without saying a word, he handed me a card to fill in my pass-port information and gave me a key.

By the time I passed by the swimming pool to go to my room, only a fewdiehards were still sitting around a table, drinking whiskey and cognac. Igreeted them and they invited me to join them for a drink. I replied that I was going to drop my things in my room and come back; I knew theywould not take “no” for an answer.

One would think that all these tribulations would have killed a normal per-son’s appetite for a film festival tucked away in an African country calledBurkina Faso. Not in my case. I must have had an hour’s sleep before thebright light in my room woke me up. I sprang to my feet determined not tomiss out this time on any more of the highlights of my visit to Ouaga for theFESPACO (Festival Panafricain du Cinéma et de la Télévision de Ouagadougou).

As usual, I had looked forward to the warm and sweet Harmattan morningsin Ouaga, out of the subzero and windy temperatures of New York City


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during the months of January, February and March. It was especially duringthose months that I would most miss these early Ouaga mornings, before theburning sun chases away the tall shadows cast by trees and the walls ofbuildings. The weather was just perfect, with a breeze caressing my face, thebrightening light entering my eyes, and birds singing behind the shrubs.

The hotel court was quiet for all other noises. I could hear the sound of thehotel employees’ brooms against the ground, jets of water falling on theplants, and the clicking metal sound of forks and knives placed on break-fast tables. I could see a White woman taking laps up and down the swim-ming pool. Suddenly, the whole courtyard was filled with the smell of crois-sants in the oven. I said to myself that this moment at Hôtel Indépendancewas well worth the hundred dollars I had paid to get my room.

I sat at a table freshly set for me, not too far from the swimming pool and atan angle from the door to the newly renovated restaurant, with a view onthe courtyard and the entrance to the hotel lobby. From this position I couldenjoy my café latte with croissants and fresh fruits, while maintaining apanoramic view on people coming in and out of the hotel.

A color photograph of Ousmane Sembène (1923-2007), more than two me-ters high, was hanging on the wall adjacent to the glass doors of the lobby.It showed a bust portrait of the demigod of African Cinema, dressed in atraditional multicolored gown and wearing a hat for chiefs in Moré society.With his signature pipe hanging between his lips, the patriarch looked downon the people coming in and out, like an Igbo mask guarding the entranceof a shrine.

Sembène and the other so-called elders of African Cinema used to have theirtable at the other end of the swimming pool, not too far from room 001 that


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was reserved for him at every FESPACO. Visitors and younger generationsof African filmmakers were permitted to greet Sembène and the other el dersat that special table, but no one uninitiated was allowed to sit and drink withthem. There were many people who used to come to Hôtel Indépendancejust to take a peek at Sembène and his entourage by the swimming pool. Thelucky ones posed and had their pictures taken with him.

I remembered Sembène saying that FESPACO was like a zoo where peoplecame to see a rare animal called the African filmmaker. Perhaps the elders’table did more than anything else in Ouaga to maintain that exotic image ofAfrican Cinema and filmmakers; and Sembène himself was consciously thebiggest marketer of this image.

Considering the metaphor of the zoo, I realized now how important it wasfor Sembène to be the lion, the King of the Forest feared by all, who reservedsevere punishment for those defying his authority. In fact, we must not befooled into thinking that Sembène was a simple man whose self-image cameto him naturally. For Sembène, cultivating a unique image or habitus—touse a term popularized by Pierre Bourdieu—was crucial.

Early on, as a writer trained by the Communist Party in Marseille, Sembèneadopted a dress style and demeanor that connoted the “ordinary” appear-ance and image of the workers and peasants who were the collective heroesof his novels and short stories. Whenever he visited Paris in the 1960s, hecould easily be recognized in front of the Présence Africaine bookstore byhis hats: a black beret, a sailor’s cap, or a sheep hair bonnet with black andwhite stripes and a button on top that North African and Senegalese work-ers wore in France. Another Sembène totem was the pipe that almost neverleft his mouth. He was also remarkable for the fast-paced way in which hemoved towards people, with one shoulder slightly lower than the other as


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if he were carrying a weight on it. He had a rusty voice and a lazy eye thatstared at you cunningly, and left you wondering whether he was laughingwith you or at your expense.

The image of Sembène as an ordinary man, who identified with the Africanpeople and could be the Everyman everywhere, was very important for therhetoric of “authenticity” in African image production; for the image of thenew man and woman he wanted to create in literature and film. The “home-boy” iconography Sembène had constructed for himself was to remind usof other grassroots heroes such as Cabral, Nkrumah and Lumumba—all ofwhom, by the way, left nothing to chance when it came to their appearance,and started their own fashion trends in Africa and the diaspora. Their styleand philosophy of themselves also corresponded to the image of an idealAfrica: modern, self-confident and progressive. Finally, the adoption of apeasant and revolutionary image of Africa implied a critique of, and an op-position to, another symbol of Africanness as created by Senghor and otherassimilationists of European bourgeois modernism. Sembène’s very appear-ance and body language were a diatribe against Africans who wore suitsand ties, spoke through their noses to imitate a Parisian accent and insistedon doing things in Africa in a French way.

Sembène was both admired and feared by filmmakers and people who at-tended the festival in Ouagadougou. Newcomers who overstepped theirboundaries with him were publicly humiliated and quickly dispatched, awarning to others to watch out before appearing in front of the “Lion King.”He was in fact an African patriarch, of a sort whose behavior could be pre-dicted: loving and paternalist at times, and aggressively on the offensive atothers. One should never assume Sembène was a walkover; he was alwayson his guard, despite the working-class looks.


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Sembène’s cinema was equally invested in creating the myth of an Africanimage. From the beginning, his films confronted the spectator with charac-ters who questioned the order of the world around them, demanded change,and challenged our view of Africa as a continent outside of history. The nar-ratives of his early films positioned the city against the country, the neo-colonial élites of the bourgeoisie against the peasants and the lumpenprole-

tariat, and the French language against African languages.

Sembène’s is a cinema in which the group is more important than the indi-vidual. It is also a cinema of distantiation, because the director does notwant the viewer to identify with the new African élites who do nothing toraise the consciousness of the masses. Finally, it is a cinema of good and evilwhere the camera is turned against the colonial and neo-colonial forces inAfrica. In a word, Sembène’s key contributions to world cinema reside inhis putting value in the African image and giving it voice, in opposition toHollywood and colonial cinemas which denied Africans a proper language

Ousmane Sembène © coll. MTM


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