No abstract

: In an interview in Sight and Sound John Akomfrah remarks that “there is the myth of African Cinema and there is the reality of it. The myth is that it is largely made by people who live and work in Africa—but my sense is that the thing is much more fluid than that.… African Cinema is a film world in search of both a constituency and a community, and it realises tfiat it is potentially a borderless cinema” (Givanni 1995: 39). Akomfrah's statement underscores the existence of slippage between transnational and continental articulations of Africa, opening the debate around the nature of the relationship between Africa as origin and African diasporic identities. Visions of Africa created by filmmakers on the shores of the Black Atlantic undeniably challenge monolithic constructions of origin and authenticity. This paper examines the nature of this challenge through an investigation of the aesthetic and ideological projects of three films: Soleil O (Med Hondo, Mauritania/France, 1970); Testament (John Akomfrah, Ghana/UK, 1988) and Ye Wonz Maibel/Deluge (Salem Mekuria, Ethiopia, 1997). Ultimately, the paper demonstrates that although each film possesses a divergent connection to Africa, all three probe the slippage between personal and national histories as a restorative force in redefining contexts of origin and identity.

This essay explores the rise of the film musical as a unique vehicle for artistic expression by African film-makers. In particular, the essay deals with the films, Karmen Geï and Madame Brouette and considers the ways in which both films employ this genre as a means of investigating social and political issues affecting postcolonial Senegalese culture. Furthermore, the African musical brings with it new ideological, visual and narrative strategies that are expanding the cinematic grammar of African cinema and creating a hybridized form. The essay demonstrates how both films engage spectators in the struggle for existence within the postcolonial context, and by foregrounding the complexities of that struggle, create a debate and a call to action that seeks solutions from within African perspectives.

Over the past few years the Montreal World Film Festival has continued to increase its programming of films by African directors. The 1991 edition, which ran from August 22-September 2, was certainly no exception. I happened to turn on the television to the French station and caught Société Radio Canada’s “official” review of Laafi by Pierre Yameogo of Burkina Faso. The reviewers, Chantal Jolis and René Homier-Roy, dismissed Yameogo’s portrayal of a current African problem—braindrain—as weak in terms of artistic production. For example, they both agreed that Laafi had too many “monotonous moments.” Homier-Roy, in particular, seemed completely oblivious to the colonizing attitude he displayed when he spoke of how the film illustrated the “petit-nègre” (a phrase I have rarely heard spoken since I left France in 1987) side of Africans. He then proceeded to “legitimize” the comment by shrugging his shoulders and declaring, “It’s the Africans who are showing it this time, not us.” Finally, the reviewers decided that African films are really only useful for their “anthropological” information.

No abstract