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- Convenor:
-
Lizelle Bisschoff
(University of Glasgow)
- Stream:
- Literature, media and the visual arts
- Location:
- G2
- Start time:
- 11 September, 2006 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
This panel will look at emerging trends in contemporary African cinema, focusing on the diversity of cinemas from the continent, in particular under-represented and neglected strands. The heterogeneity of cinemas from the continent is prevalent in the themes, genres, aesthetic styles and production conditions of filmmaking from the different African regions and countries. However, African film scholarship of the last few decades has focused pre-dominantly on francophone African film, and the purpose of this panel is to investigate some of the less-explored strands of contemporary African cinema. Some of these include the emergence of female filmmakers from all over the continent, and an investigation into how these upcoming female filmmakers draw on the legacies left by the pioneering female filmmakers, as well as how they incorporate notions of African feminism and womanhood into their films, stylistically and/or thematically. Not regarded as part of African cinema during apartheid, the last decade has seen the rise of a new wave of South African filmmaking in the post-apartheid era, as well as the increasing re-integration of South African cinema into the notion of African cinema as a whole. Other anglophone African countries, for example Nigeria and Zimbabwe, have likewise been establishing prolific national cinemas over the last 10-15 years. The cinemas from lusophone African countries - shaped by the legacy of "guerrilla" or activist filmmaking during the struggle for independence - have also not received due attention in the contemporary era. The overall aim of the panel is thus to explore the multiplicity of contemporary African cinema.
Long Abstract:
This panel will look at emerging trends in contemporary African cinema, focusing on the diversity of cinemas from the continent, in particular under-represented and neglected strands. The heterogeneity of cinemas from the continent is prevalent in the themes, genres, aesthetic styles and production conditions of filmmaking from the different African regions and countries. However, African film scholarship of the last few decades has focused pre-dominantly on francophone African film, and the purpose of this panel is to investigate some of the less-explored strands of contemporary African cinema. Some of these include the emergence of female filmmakers from all over the continent, and an investigation into how these upcoming female filmmakers draw on the legacies left by the pioneering female filmmakers, as well as how they incorporate notions of African feminism and womanhood into their films, stylistically and/or thematically. Not regarded as part of African cinema during apartheid, the last decade has seen the rise of a new wave of South African filmmaking in the post-apartheid era, as well as the increasing re-integration of South African cinema into the notion of African cinema as a whole. Other anglophone African countries, for example Nigeria and Zimbabwe, have likewise been establishing prolific national cinemas over the last 10-15 years. The cinemas from lusophone African countries - shaped by the legacy of "guerrilla" or activist filmmaking during the struggle for independence - have also not received due attention in the contemporary era. The overall aim of the panel is thus to explore the multiplicity of contemporary African cinema.
No space for further papers.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper long abstract:
African women are, as in most other public spheres of their societies, hugely underrepresented in the film industry as directors. However, the last decade has seen the gradual emergence of more and more female directors from all over the continent. "No aspect of African cinema is more miraculous that the most unbidden emergence of female filmmakers on the continent," states Mahen Sophia Bonetti, a film festival organiser from Sierra Leone (in Ellerson, 2000:73). This is particularly true in West Africa where Senegalese director Safi Faye became the first sub-Saharan African women to direct a feature-length film (Kaddu Beykat or Letter from My Village) as early as 1975. This paper will trace the emergence of West African female directors - from the work of pioneering female directors such as Safi Faye to young contemporary directors - exploring the aesthetic styles, genres and themes employed in their work. The paper will further look at industry conditions and how these influence access to training, funding, production and distribution.
Selected films from West African female directors will be analysed against an African feminist interpretative framework, while exploring the notion of a female sensibility that could be observed in their work and evaluating the usefulness of the oft-cited dichotomy between the communal nature of African feminism and the bourgeois individualism of Western feminism. Consideration will also be given to the fact that, although African women directors deal with female themes such as sexuality, beauty, female genital mutilation, polygamy and economic emancipation in their films, some female directors resist being labeled as "feminist" and prefer to be known merely as storytellers, without overt reference to their gender. The first feature films of Burkinabe directors Fanta Regina Nacro (La Nuit de la Vérité or The Night of Truth, 2004) and Appoline Traoré (Sous la Clarté de la Lune or Under the Moonlight, 2004) will be discussed, as well as how their initiation into the audio-visual industry through short films, documentaries, television and development work, has led to the production of feature fiction films.
The paper will demonstrate how female directors counter stereotypical Western representations of African women as silent victims, with the overall aim of the paper being to outline the emergence of West African female directors as an important but neglected trend in contemporary African cinema.
Paper long abstract:
In light of the video production explosion in Anglophone West Africa, prominently in Nigeria, there has been increased attention paid by western media to an industry that has rapidly developed in recent years. Although some scholars and local government officials may debate the viability of a Nigerian video-film industry, few can ignore its impact in Nigeria, neighbouring African countries and African migrant communities abroad.
With work such as that of Jonathan Haynes and Onookome Okome, academic focus is slowly shifting away from the predominance of Francophone and Lusophone African cinema as the sole voice of Africa and greater scholarship is being produced in the area of video-films from Anglophone countries. However, the ongoing comparison between the overtly political style of Francophone and Lusophone films grounded in a third cinema framework remains privileged over that of popular Nigerian video-films. Nigerian productions are often dismissed by film scholars, for a pre-occupation with themes of sorcery and the occult as oppose to addressing socioeconomic and political issues facing post-independence African nations, as this is more characteristic of Francophone and Lusophone African cinema.
The intention of this paper is to add to the debate on African video-films, with textual analysis of three productions by Nigerian director Tunde Kelani: Saworoide (1999), Thunderbolt (2001) and Agogo Eewo (2002). Within this discussion, I will argue how representing indigenous African spirituality, a dramatic technique in Nigeria rooted in the Yoruba travelling theatre and which remains prevalent in local video production, is employed by Kelani to examine contemporary issues such as shifting national and cultural identities, debilitating government corruption and increasing fear of HIV-AIDS. Additionally, I will explore the international reception and political ramifications of Kelani's productions including controversy over state censorship of his work. Using Nigeria as a case study, this examination will seek to further the debate on African video-films beyond the thematic context of the supernatural versus the political. Instead, this discussion will aid in understanding questions facing African communities and the cinematic representations that have captivated the imagination of audiences in Africa and abroad.
Paper long abstract:
<b>Co-author: Grace Hassan, University of Ghana</b></br>
This paper is a study of two award winning Ghanaian video films, A Stab in the Dark and Ripples. One major criticism of the recent phenomenon of the proliferation of Nigerian and Ghanaian videos has been that they lack the finesse of high art. While they have increased in quantity and popularity over the past ten years, there are still questions as to their increasing quality. Improvements in video technology have certainly contributed to better sound and picture quality of these popular art forms. The quality of the contents, the storyline and other dramatic elements has remained largely unexamined. The main thrust of this paper is an examination of these two specific examples from Ghana, in an attempt to analyse the negotiations between popular taste and traditional aesthetic demands.