african film new forms of aesthetics and politics pRESTEL

african film new forms of aesthetics and politics manthia diawara pRESTEL MUNICH BERLIN LONDON NEW YORK In memoriam Samba Félix Ndiaye, Adama Drabo, Désiré Écaré, Ousmane Sembène Table of Contents Foreword Bernd M. Scherer ........................................... 015 ❂ African Film New Forms of Aesthetics and Politics Manthia Diawara Chapter 1: Ouagadougou ................................. Chapter 2: Berlin .............. The New African Cinema Wave .......................... A. The Arte Wave ............................................ B. La Guilde des Cinéastes: The Independent Spirit ................... African Cinema—Foreign Aid as Tarzanism 018 071 090 100 120 and the Pursuit of a Pan-African Cinema C. The New Popular African Cinema Chapter 3: .............................. 138 Nollywood Popular Cinema and the New Social Imaginary ........................................ Toward a Narratological Approach to Nollywood Videos .. 162 175 ........................................................... .................................................... ........................................................... 186 191 194 Mobility in Africa Epilogue Acknowledgments References ❂ Visions of a New African Cinema African Cinema, Post-colonialism and the Aesthetic Strategies of Representation .......................................... 196 A panel discussion with Manthia Diawara, Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda, Jean-Pierre Bekolo, Cheick Fantamady Camara and Mama Keïta “Look, I am not francophone” ........................................ 241 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” ........... 246 ..................................... 250 Zola Maseko talks about film production in South Africa “Nollywood was actually a reaction by people who had nothing to do with film” Jahman Anikulapo talks about the Nollywood phenomenon ❂ Filmographies ............................................... John Akomfrah: Testament ............................................. Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda: Juju Factory ................................ Jean-Pierre Bekolo: Les saignantes ...................................... Cheick Fantamady Camara: Il va pleuvoir sur Conakry .................. Souleymane Cissé: Finyé – le vent ...................................... Issa Serge Coelo: DP 75—Tartina City .................................. Adama Drabo: Taafe Fanga ............................................ Newton I. Aduaka: Ezra 258 260 262 264 266 268 270 272 .................................... Zézé Gamboa: O Herói ................................................ Haile Gerima: Teza ..................................................... Flora Gomes: Po di sangui ............................................. Mahamat-Saleh Haroun: Daratt – saison sèche .......................... Gavin Hood: Tsotsi .................................................... Mama Keïta: Le fleuve .................................................. Tunde Kelani: Thunderbolt ............................................. Wanjiru Kinyanjui: Bahati ............................................. Zola Maseko: Drum ................................................... Fanta Régina Nacro: La nuit de la verité ................................. Cheikh A. Ndiaye: L’appel des arènes ................................... Katy Lena Ndiaye: En attendant les hommes ............................ Samba Félix Ndiaye: Lettre à Senghor .................................. Chris Obi Rapu: Living in Bondage ..................................... Moussa Sène Absa: Tableau Ferraille .................................... Abderrahmane Sissako: Bamako........................................ Mansour Sora Wade: Ndeysaan – le prix du pardon ...................... Ramadan Suleman: Zulu Love Letter ................................... Jihan el-Tahri: Cuba – une odyssée africaine .............................. Jean-Marie Téno: Le malentendu colonial ................................ Moussa Touré: TGV ................................................... S. Pierre Yaméogo: Moi et mon blanc .................................... Gahité Fofana: Un matin bonne heure 2 74 276 278 280 282 284 286 288 290 292 294 296 298 300 302 304 306 308 310 312 314 316 318 Bernd M. Scherer Foreword ❂ In 2007, I invited Manthia Diawara to curate a film series on contemporary African cinema for the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. The series was intended to review current developments and creative visions in African film today. The result 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 the relationship between an African village and the river flowing through it. The river determines the village’s livelihood and survival, and the villagers worship Faro, the water spirit. Zanga, the main protagonist, was driven out of the village as an illegitimate child. Years later, now a qualified engineer, he returns home—but the river spirit seems angry. The film neither unequivocally favors the villagers’ rural world nor the rational world of science and technology; instead, it explores the interrelations between them. During the discussion afterwards, a member of the audience roundly criticized the film. By showing Africa as traditional and backward, Traoré’s film presented a disastrous picture of Africa. Surely, the kinds of films needed now have to focus on the modern, cosmopolitan Africa. Evidently, the audience member was taking a stand as an activist for Africa. This scene, though, is typical—and still epitomizes Europe’s relationship to Africa, even today. Paternalism has replaced colonial relations. In this kind of Tarzan-Jane syndrome, we are exhorted to help Africans understand themselves and present their image. Yet, motivated by so much good will, people totally overlook how this simply perpetuates the old asymmetries. African Film—New Forms of Aesthetics and Politics shows just how far African filmmakers are from needing such help. Instead, their primary concern is to develop their own cinematic language, creating a voice definitely not there to fulfill Western expectations, projections and stereotypes. 015 FOREWORD There is another dilemma behind the well-meaning attitude illustrated by the audience member. Such a paternalistic attitude towards the film also stops people from questioning their own beliefs and values. By not taking the film’s position seriously, the criticism excludes the possibility of learning from this encounter. It prevents such critics from realizing that the image of Africa they are trying to save is rooted in European cultural and intellectual history. They are propounding a distinct division between the traditional and modern worlds, a belief no doubt equally shared by the majority of Europeans. The intellectual foundation of the modern worldview, consciously distancing itself from tradition, was laid down during the European Enlightenment. In the confrontation with this film, the audience member never thought of questioning this Weltanschauung. In such a situation, both the Western and the African position are robbed of their 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 contrast, the AFRICAN SCREENS project and this book were and are the attempt to let African cinema and filmmakers speak for themselves so that both sides can benefit. Here, first and foremost, I would like to thank Manthia Diawara, whose commitment and expertise made this project possible. I would like to thank as well all the African filmmakers who allowed us a greater insight into their positions at the series of events in the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. I would also like to thank Doris Hegner, who was responsible for the film and book project for the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, and Martin Hager who oversaw the book’s publication. I am grateful to the German Federal Foreign Office and the Circle of Friends—House of World Cultures for supporting this publication and, finally, to the Prince Claus Fund and the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie for funding the DVD of interviews with African filmmakers. Bernd M. Scherer, Director Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin, December 2009 016 new forms of aesthetics and politics Chapter 1: Ouagadougou ❂ Manthia Diawara Ouagadougou, 28th February 2009. I woke up early in the morning, unfazed by the frustrations throughout the previous day and night caused by delayed flights and a full day wasted in Dakar waiting for my connection. My plane had landed at 3 a.m. in Dakar, after a seven-hour flight from New York; the connecting flight was at 6 p.m., not a.m., as I had thought before leaving New York. Stuck, as I was, at a small airport without comfortable chairs or shopping areas to cheat the long hours, I found myself wondering about the predicament of modernity and progress in Africa. You may think that I was simply a frustrated African returning home and that I had only myself to blame for not reading the schedule on my plane ticket properly. And I would have agreed with you, if my 6 p.m. Air Burkina flight had not been five hours behind schedule. I had been anxious to get to Ouaga by at least 10 or 11 p.m., to check into my hotel quickly, and to still have time to go outside to reconnect with old friends and filmmakers from all over Africa; time to enjoy the nightlife of Ouaga during the festival; time to see all the nice crowd gathered around the swimming pool at Hôtel Indépendance; and to be seen by all. My plane, by arriving once again at 3 a.m., but in another African capital city, had spoiled this first night party in Ouaga for me. The hotel too had some surprises in store for me. My reservation, made three months earlier, 018 Chapter 1: Ouagadougou was nowhere to be found and the hotel was fully booked. Luckily I knew the game the receptionists were playing. They had just given rooms to two White men ahead of me, in exchange for an undisclosed dash. So I put my credit card on the counter and calmly explained to the head receptionist who was looking at me that it was not the festival that was responsible for my bill; I was paying upfront with my card. The man continued to look at me as if to say, “And then?” I was too tired to scream, kick around, or signify about corruption and racism. I was also beside myself because of the fatigue caused by sleeplessness and jetlag. So I shook hands with the man and left a hundred dollar bill in his hand. Without saying a word, he handed me a card to fill in my passport information and gave me a key. By the time I passed by the swimming pool to go to my room, only a few diehards were still sitting around a table, drinking whiskey and cognac. I greeted 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 they would not take “no” for an answer. One would think that all these tribulations would have killed a normal person’s appetite for a film festival tucked away in an African country called Burkina Faso. Not in my case. I must have had an hour’s sleep before the bright light in my room woke me up. I sprang to my feet determined not to miss out this time on any more of the highlights of my visit to Ouaga for the FESPACO (Festival Panafricain du Cinéma et de la Télévision de Ouagadougou). As usual, I had looked forward to the warm and sweet Harmattan mornings in Ouaga, out of the subzero and windy temperatures of New York City 019 NEW FORMS OF AESTHETICS AND POLITICS during the months of January, February and March. It was especially during those months that I would most miss these early Ouaga mornings, before the burning sun chases away the tall shadows cast by trees and the walls of buildings. The weather was just perfect, with a breeze caressing my face, the brightening 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 the hotel employees’ brooms against the ground, jets of water falling on the plants, and the clicking metal sound of forks and knives placed on breakfast tables. I could see a White woman taking laps up and down the swimming pool. Suddenly, the whole courtyard was filled with the smell of croissants in the oven. I said to myself that this moment at Hôtel Indépendance was 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 at an angle from the door to the newly renovated restaurant, with a view on the courtyard and the entrance to the hotel lobby. From this position I could enjoy my café latte with croissants and fresh fruits, while maintaining a panoramic view on people coming in and out of the hotel. A color photograph of Ousmane Sembène (1923-2007), more than two meters 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 a traditional multicolored gown and wearing a hat for chiefs in Moré society. With his signature pipe hanging between his lips, the patriarch looked down on the people coming in and out, like an Igbo mask guarding the entrance of a shrine. Sembène and the other so-called elders of African Cinema used to have their table at the other end of the swimming pool, not too far from room 001 that 020 Chapter 1: Ouagadougou was reserved for him at every FESPACO. Visitors and younger generations of African filmmakers were permitted to greet Sembène and the other elders at that special table, but no one uninitiated was allowed to sit and drink with them. There were many people who used to come to Hôtel Indépendance just to take a peek at Sembène and his entourage by the swimming pool. The lucky ones posed and had their pictures taken with him. I remembered Sembène saying that FESPACO was like a zoo where people came 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 of African Cinema and filmmakers; and Sembène himself was consciously the biggest marketer of this image. Considering the metaphor of the zoo, I realized now how important it was for Sembène to be the lion, the King of the Forest feared by all, who reserved severe punishment for those defying his authority. In fact, we must not be fooled into thinking that Sembène was a simple man whose self-image came to him naturally. For Sembène, cultivating a unique image or habitus—to use a term popularized by Pierre Bourdieu—was crucial. Early on, as a writer trained by the Communist Party in Marseille, Sembène adopted a dress style and demeanor that connoted the “ordinary” appearance and image of the workers and peasants who were the collective heroes of his novels and short stories. Whenever he visited Paris in the 1960s, he could easily be recognized in front of the Présence Africaine bookstore by his hats: a black beret, a sailor’s cap, or a sheep hair bonnet with black and white stripes and a button on top that North African and Senegalese workers wore in France. Another Sembène totem was the pipe that almost never left his mouth. He was also remarkable for the fast-paced way in which he moved towards people, with one shoulder slightly lower than the other as 021 NEW FORMS OF AESTHETICS AND POLITICS if he were carrying a weight on it. He had a rusty voice and a lazy eye that stared at you cunningly, and left you wondering whether he was laughing with you or at your expense. The image of Sembène as an ordinary man, who identified with the African people and could be the Everyman everywhere, was very important for the rhetoric of “authenticity” in African image production; for the image of the new man and woman he wanted to create in literature and film. The “homeboy” iconography Sembène had constructed for himself was to remind us of other grassroots heroes such as Cabral, Nkrumah and Lumumba—all of whom, 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 style and philosophy of themselves also corresponded to the image of an ideal Africa: modern, self-confident and progressive. Finally, the adoption of a peasant and revolutionary image of Africa implied a critique of, and an opposition to, another symbol of Africanness as created by Senghor and other assimilationists of European bourgeois modernism. Sembène’s very appearance and body language were a diatribe against Africans who wore suits and ties, spoke through their noses to imitate a Parisian accent and insisted on doing things in Africa in a French way. Sembène was both admired and feared by filmmakers and people who attended the festival in Ouagadougou. Newcomers who overstepped their boundaries with him were publicly humiliated and quickly dispatched, a warning 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 predicted: loving and paternalist at times, and aggressively on the offensive at others. One should never assume Sembène was a walkover; he was always on his guard, despite the working-class looks. 022 Chapter 1: Ouagadougou Ousmane Sembène © coll. MTM Sembène’s cinema was equally invested in creating the myth of an African image. From the beginning, his films confronted the spectator with characters who questioned the order of the world around them, demanded change, and challenged our view of Africa as a continent outside of history. The narratives of his early films positioned the city against the country, the neocolonial élites of the bourgeoisie against the peasants and the lumpenproletariat, and the French language against African languages. Sembène’s is a cinema in which the group is more important than the individual. It is also a cinema of distantiation, because the director does not want the viewer to identify with the new African élites who do nothing to raise the consciousness of the masses. Finally, it is a cinema of good and evil where the camera is turned against the colonial and neo-colonial forces in Africa. In a word, Sembène’s key contributions to world cinema reside in his putting value in the African image and giving it voice, in opposition to Hollywood and colonial cinemas which denied Africans a proper language 023