Movies - African cinema

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	Movies - African cinema

The term African cinema usually refers to the film production in countries south of the Sahara since they gained formal independence, which for many countries happened in the 1960s. Some of the countries which belong geographically to Africa, especially Egypt had developed a national film industry much earlier. Often African Cinema also includes African directors living in the diaspora.

Film in Africa during the colonial era

Africa was and still is the continent of projections. Like for many African writers, e.g. Chinua Achebe, repudiating racist sterotypes and images about Africa and Africans the colonizers had fabricated and disseminated was an important motivation for many African film makers. In Hollywood movies shot in the colonial era Africa is only a scenery for white actors, a background reduced to landscapes and a few 'primitives' who inevitably are dangerous and wild or servants satisfied with their lot. These demeaning representations are a continuation of the 'Völkerschauen'. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries noneuropeans were exposed in European zoos like animals.

In the French colonies film making was formally forbidden to Africans. The first francophone African film, L’Afrique sur Seine by Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, was therefore shot in Paris in 1955.

Before independence only a few anticolonial films like Les statues meurent aussi by Chris Marker and Alain Resnais about European robbery of African art, which was forbidden by the French for 10 years , or Afrique 50 by René Vauthier about anticolonial riots in Ivory Coast and in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) could be produced.

Many of the ethnographic films produced in the colonial era by Jean Rouch and others where rejected by African film makers because (at least in their view) they distorted African realities.

60s and 70s

The first African film to win international recognition was Ousmane Sembènes 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 Sembènes had turned to cinema to reach a wider audience. He is still considered to be the 'father' of African Cinema. Sembènes' native country Senegal continued to be the most important place of production for more then a decade.

By creating the all African film festival FESPACO in Burkina Faso in 1969 African film had created its own forum. It takes place every two years in alternation with the film festival Carthago in (Tunisia).

Med Hondo's O soleil O, shot in 1969, was immediately recognized. Politically not less engaged then Sembène, he chose a more unquiet filmic language to show what it means to be a stranger in France having the 'wrong' colour.

Djibril Diop Mambéty's sophisticated comedy Touki Bouki (1973) about a young couple in Dakar which at all costs wants to make a trip to Paris is still considered one of the best African films ever made.

Conditions of Production and Reception

African film makers have a difficult access to their African audiences. The commercial cinemas often have to book blindly and show primarily Hollywood or Bollywood films. Where African audiences do have access to African films, e.g. at the Panafrican film festival in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), they usually show a lively interest in the films. Most African film makers still rely heavily on European institutions for financing and producing their films. A commercially viable video production has been set up in Nigeria.

The way African film makers see themselves and their mission

The political approach of African film makers is clearly evident in the Charte du cinéaste africain which the union of African film makers FEPACI adopted in Algiers in 1975.

The film makers 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." In this situation African filmmakers saw it as their social responsibility to further the growth of consciousness of African people. They stressed their solidarity with progressive filmakers in other parts of the world. African cinema is often seen a part of Third Cinema.

In the words of Souleymane Cissé: "African filmmakers' first task is to show that people here are human beings and to help people discover the African values that can be of service to others. The following generation will branch out into other aspects of film. Our duty is to make people understand that white people have lied through their images." (Thackway, p. 39)

Some African filmmakers , e.g. Ousmane Sembène, try to give back African history to African people by remembering the resistance to European and Islamic domination.

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