AFRICAN WOMEN IN CINEMA BLOG: December 2021

26 December 2021

African Women in Cinema: Perspectives from the Nordic Region/Scandinavia - Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden

African Women in Cinema: Perspectives from the Nordic Region/Scandinavia - Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden

I enjoyed having two homes in different countries [Sweden and Burkina Faso], and it helped me to get a greater understanding and perspective of different cultures and values.--Theresa Traoré Dahlberg

That issues around identity, positionality and social location permeate film screenings and debates of the African Diaspora of the Nordic Region is indicative of its widening interest in positive, realistic representations emanating from global Africa/Diasporas. Hence creating distinct spaces where topics and concerns regarding the experiences of people of African descent may be raised, debated and understood. Swedish-Burkinabé Theresa Traoré Dahlberg, born to a mother from Sweden and a father from Burkina Faso reflects this diversity and desire to show realistic images of Africa in her filmmaking: Taxi Sisters about a women taxi driver from Senegal, and Ouaga Girls, profiling women auto mechanics in Burkina Faso. While making the film Ouaga Girls Theresa Traoré Dahlberg was introduced to the wife of the French ambassador to Burkina Faso, who also sang opera, she asked her to film her during her rehearsals. The film shoot developed into an intimate portrait of her daily activities at the ambassador residence, entitled, The Life of an Ambassador's Wife released in 2018. The film brings out above all, the conflicting feelings that Theresa had around power and privilege. The filmmaking experience took her back to the colonial legacy of Burkina Faso, as if the ambassador residence was a throwback in time to that period. In 2018, she was featured on the Black Archives Sweden portal during which she discussed her interest in exploring her family archive through photographs, films, sound collections, memories and oral histories, which too are the main focus of the BAS. During her interview with the Archives, she noted: "The Black Archive allows for deeper perspective than what I have previously been exposed to or had access to."

The Black Archive Sweden, founded by Jonelle Twum who is also the artistic director, includes curator Ulrika Flink and communications lead Joella Kalala. The portal describes its foundational background in this way: Many official archives today are spaces with minimal to no representation of Afro-Swedes* (the asterisk notes that Afro-Swede/Afro-Swedish is used with openness and inclusivity) and Black people in Sweden. these are also spaces that reproduce and consolidate swedishness as whiteness and Blackness as the Other. The narratives that our official archives hold, open up questions about what stories constitute the nation. Who is worthy of remembrance? What stories are worthy of documentation and preservation, and on what premises?

The Stockholm-based Cinema Africa Film Festival, created in 1998, provides a platform and forum for African films in Sweden. The 2015 edition was dedicated to African women in film, featuring film screenings and a panel discussion with African women directors.

Similarly, in 2015, the Danish Centre for Gender, Equality and Diversity organized "Stories Untold" a project that involved twelve women from Jordan, Oman, Tunisia, Egypt, Palestine and Lebanon, in order to tell their stories through film.

In 2021, a screening of Safi Faye's Kaddu Beykat in the context of the project "Black Women at the Centre as part of the film program ‘Ruptures – Beyond the frame: Experimental Cinema from Africa and the Diaspora, at the Danish Film Institute, Cinemateket in Copenhagen in October-November.

FilmAfrikana, an independent Oslo-based film festival founded by Norwegian-Ghanaian Lamisi Gurah, had as its objective to expose the Norwegian public to films by people of Africa and the African Diaspora. While it is no longer active--though the Nordic Black Theatre continues to thrive--its goal was to provide a different perspective regarding the African continent. The 2011 edition, featured women of Africa and the Diaspora in front of and behind the camera.

Finland has been a partner of Zambia screen culture since the 1990s, since then there has been a flurry of African-film focused initiatives. Pioneer filmmaker and activist Musola Cathrine Kaseketi received support from Finnish sponsors to attend the Newtown Film and Television School in Johannesburg, where she graduated with honors, including the award for Best Student of the Year in 2000. Her relationship with Finland continued with the creation of Vilole Image Productions in 2002, which was supported by the Embassy of Finland through the Fund for Local Cooperation.

In 2010 Seya Kitenge Fundafunda attended a film internship program in Helsinki, which showed a particular interesting in training young Zambians interested in filmmaking. Similarly, Jessie Chisi enrolled in the training program. In addition she connected with the Finnish film association, Euphoria Boralise, doing several projects.

Wanjiku wa Ngugi, when residing in Finland, founded the Helsinki African Film Festival in 2010. She felt that even though perceptions of Finland give the impression of conservatism, to the contrary, she sees that there is much more openness within Finnish society, which was also evident by the fact that the festival initiative was supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Hence, Wanjiku used the Festival to create an opportunity to see a different view of Africa. Her objective for founding the festival: "to show the diversity of this continent, and begin a different conversation, one informed by a more realistic view as told by the Africans themselves."

The 2011 edition focused its theme on "Women's Voices and Visions"." Wanjiku had this to say about the theme for that year: "We wanted to not only celebrate women in film but also raise awareness about the African women’s experience, highlight the global economic and political issues that affect them. We also wanted to showcase the diversity of African women, as well as hopefully move away from the tendency to depict African women as weak, voiceless and always as victims."

Report by Beti Ellerson

A selection of articles about African women and the Nordic Region (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden) on the African Women in Cinema Blog

(Re)Discover Theresa Traoré Dahlberg

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2018/07/re-discover-theresa-traore-dahlberg.html

Stories Untold: We all have lives. We all have stories. We all have phones
#Denmark
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2015/04/stories-untold-we-all-have-lives-we-all.html

Jessie Chisi
#Finland
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2014/09/jessie-chisi-talks-about-between-rings.html

Theresa Traore Dahlberg
#Sweden

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2011/06/theresa-traore-dahlberg-and-taxi-sister.html

Spotlight on Seya Kitenge Fundfunda
#Finland
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2011/10/spotlight-on-seya-kitenge-fundafunda.html

Wanjiku wa Ngugi (Helsinki African Film Festival)
#Finland
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2011/05/wanjiku-wa-ngugi-talks-about-helsinki.html

Focus on Women: Perspectives from Oslo
#Norway
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2011/04/focus-on-women-perspectives-from-oslo.html

24 December 2021

Music, Song and Dance in the Films of African Women

Music, Song and Dance

in the Films of African Women

by Beti Ellerson

Notes to continue...

“Haunting” is how Safi Faye describes the voice of Yandé Codou Sène, as it reverberates throughout the film Mossane, with recurrent chants, performing as the non-diegetic storyteller, setting the dramatic tone of the fate of the eponymous protagonist, the beautiful Mossane.

Yandé Codou Sène (1932-2010), the griot of poet-president Leopold Sédar Senghor, lauded his praises as she accompanied him on his official and social visits. The griot continues to hold an important place in African traditions. Safi Faye’s incorporation of Yandé Codou Sène’s voice highlights the manner in which the griotic chant within oral storytelling has functioned as a site of intergenerational transfer of cultural knowledge and the transmission of everyday political and social discourse. It is also the voice of conscience, asking questions about Mossane’s well being, about the ramifications of the choices that others are making about her life; its role is to interpellate and question the social order. It is all the more compelling that Yandé Codou Sène is not seen. Hence, her enthralling voice is an integral part of the narrative: introducing Mossane, the Serer legend, and the wandering beggar boy, joining in the ancestral ceremony; lamenting Mossane’s suffering, eulogizing her death and posing questions regarding the village’s fate.

Angèle Diabang's Yandé Codou, the Griotte of Senghor and Yandé Codou Sène, diva séeréer by Laurence Gavron, recount the life of this mythical figure, the only one who could interrupt Leopold Sedar Senghor’s speech with a song of praise.

Similarly, in the documentary Calypso Rose, Pascale Obolo's relates the world of this diva from Trinidad, "who has dedicated her whole life to music, to her art. In Nadja Harek's Tata Milouda, the slammeuses from Algeria flees her old life--abusive and violent-- and becomes a slam star in France. "Thanks to writing and slam, she reclaimed her freedom".

Afrikaners Rina Jooste, who worked as a freelance musician and for theatre productions tells stories using drama / music to portray social messages. Similarly, Rama Thiaw who was influenced by hip hop and the social movement brought about by the Senegalese activist hip hop group Positive Black Soul (aka PBS), reflects this activsm in her work. Her documentary, The Revolution won’t be televised, which shows her direct influence by Gil Scott Heron, the godfather of social and political hip hop activism, incorporates the elements of hip hop as a conceptual framework and symbol for change.

For Dyana Gaye, the musical comedy Un transport en commun | St. Louis Blues was a way to combine her myriad ideas from dance and music, using cinema to bring them all together. Similarly, Armande Lo, who has always been passionate about music, art and cinema directed the short fiction film Betty Jazz, about a woman who dreams of being a jazz singer. Caroline Kamya's Imani used music as the essential ingredient of the film, blending popular contemporary local language acoustic and hiphop, with traditional African rhythms beats: "The use of music that is an integral part of life in Africa and in the Diaspora take centre stage in my film." Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nyaminyami Amaji Abulozi (Nyaminyami and the Evil Eggs) is a musical adaptation of ancient Tonga folklore.

A selection of articles on the African Women in Cinema Blog about music, song and dance in the films of African Women

Malibala, women sing in solidarity with Mali, an initiative of Fatou Kandé Senghor
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2013/01/malibala-women-sing-in-soldidarity-with.html

In Memory of Yandé Codou Sène (1932-2010)
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2010/07/in-memory-of-yande-codou-sene-1932-2010.html

A look at women in Senegalese hip-hop | Regards féminins sur le hip-hop sénégalais – Analysis by/analyse par Fatou Sall
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2016/02/a-look-at-women-in-senegalese-hip-hop.html

Tata Milouda by/de Nadja Harek (Algeria | Algérie / France)
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2019/02/fespaco-2019-tata-milouda-byde-nadja.html

“Living Legends”, Akosua-Asamoabea Ampofo, USA
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2018/10/ndiva-womens-film-festival-2018-living.html

Naabiga, le prince by/de Zalissa Zoungrana (Burkina Faso)
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2019/02/fespaco-2019-naabiga-le-prince-byde.html

Pascale Obolo : "Calypso Rose the lioness of the jungle"
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2013/02/fespaco-2013-pascale-obolo-calypso-rose.html

Kickstarter Crowdfunding Campaign for film on Ethiopian Nun Composer Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2016/03/kickstarter-crowdfunding-campaign-for.html

Rumba in the Jungle, the return by Yolanda Keabatswe Mogatusi (South Africa)
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2019/10/ndiva-womens-film-festival-2019-rumba.html

23 December 2021

African Women's Cinematic Love Stories and Other Matters of the Heart

African Women's Cinematic Love Stories and Other Matters of the Heart

To talk about love in Rwanda is to be able to tell stories that people hold dear, that are poetic and funny while at the same time posing a fundamental question: How do we love each other after a genocide?--Jacqueline Kalimunda

Mahen Bonetti, founder and director of the New York African Film Festival had this to say about love stories from Africa: “When thinking of Africa," she says, "the definition of love is vague or absent. The word love is always overshadowed by crisis—AIDS, drought, warfare. So when thinking of the continent of Africa, one does not think of the word love in relation to the emotions and tension that accompanies the concept."

Hence African women's cinematic love stories relate the myriad sentiments on the continuum of expressions of the heart: the taboo, desire, obsession, forbidden love, longing, passion, jealousy, revenge, courtship, first love, sexualities.

Ekwa Msangi's Farewell Amor attempts to explore this affective characteristic which Mahen Bonetti finds lacking in representations of the African experience. She has this to say about her interest in the theme of love in her film Farewell Amor: …I want to explore the theme of black love in this film, and specifically how it pertains to African people. Probably for religious reasons (among many others), the ways in which love, longing and relationship is discussed and portrayed in African film is very limiting. I’m hoping to expand to scope with this film.

In her film Vers la tendresse (Towards tenderness), Alice Diop reveals the experiences of four young men who while speaking openly, are either locked in the sexual and romantic representations they have internalized or are on the verge of breaking out of them. Similarly, Leyla Bouzid's Une Histoire d'amour et de désir (A Tale of Love and Desire), Leyla Bouzid wanted to go beyond the clichés that show representations of men of North African origin with a very virile, visible masculinity on display. She wanted to relate the experiences of a shy young man with a passion for literature and a pure vision of love.

Notes to continue...

A selection of articles about cinematic loves stories and other matters of the heart on the African Women in Cinema Blog:

Holy Fatma: Please Love me Forever
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2021/11/francetv-libre-court-holy-fatma-please.html

Leyla Bouzid: A Tale of Love and Desire
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2021/09/a-tale-of-love-desire-leyla-bouzid-falila-gbadamassi.html

Désirée Kahikopo: The White Line
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2020/12/ecrans-noirs-2020-white-line-la-ligne.html

Ekwa Msangi: Farewell Amor
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2016/04/tanzanian-american-ekwa-msangi-launches.html

Report by Beti Ellerson

22 December 2021

African Women, Screen Culture, Heterotopian Spaces, Otherworlds: Afrofuturistic, dystopia, fantasy, supernatural, science fiction, mythology

African Women, Screen Culture, Heterotopian Spaces, Otherworlds: Afrofuturistic, dystopia, fantasy, supernatural, science fiction, mythology

A selection of articles on the African Women in Cinema Blog related to African Women, Screen Culture and Heterotopian Spaces, Otherworlds: afrofuturistic journeys, dystopian spaces, phantastamorgia, supernatural beings, mythological encounters, science fictional worlds.

Holy Fatma: Fatale Orientale (Blooming Dalia)
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2021/10/holy-fatma-fatale-orientale.html.html

Holy Fatma: Please Love Me Forever
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2021/11/francetv-libre-court-holy-fatma-please.html

Souad Douibi: M9awda
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2021/11/souad-douibi-m9kawda.html

Super Sema. An Afro-futuristic animation series: Time to Change the World
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2021/03/super-sema-afro-futuristic-animation.html

Eden Tinto Collins, Gystere Peskine: WOMXN
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2020/02/festival-films-femmes-afrique-2020-eden.html

Kantarama Gahigiri: Tanzanite
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2019/06/kantarama-gahigiri-tanzanite-un-projet.html

Malenga Mulendema: Mama K’s Team 4, animated series (Zambia)
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2019/04/netflix-mama-ks-team-4-animated.html

Nikyatu Jusu: Suicide by Sunlight, a horror film
http://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2019/12/suicide-by-sunlight-2019-horror-film-by.html

Cyrielle Raingou : Challenge (Cameroon | Cameroun)
http://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2018/06/mis-me-binga-2018-cyrielle-raingou.html

Nnedi Okorafor's award-winning novel "Who Fears Death" to be adapted for TV series
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2017/07/nnedi-okorafor-award-winning-novel-who.html

Tibeb Girls, an animation project by Bruktawit Tigabu (Ethiopia)
http://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2017/04/tibeb-girls-animation-project-by.html

Siam Marley: Normalium (Cote d’Ivoire)
http://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2017/02/fespaco-2017-normalium-byde-siam-marley.html

Jabu Nadia Newman: The Foxy Five Web Series (South Africa)
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-foxy-five-web-series-created-and.html

Beti Ellerson: African Women of the Screen at the Digital Turn | Écrans d’Afrique au féminin au tournant numérique

http://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2016/04/african-women-of-screen-at-digital-turn.html

France Bodomo: Afronauts (Ghana)
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2014/07/afronauts-by-france-bodomo-ghana.html

Wanuri Kahiu: Afrofuturism and the African
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2012/09/wanuri-kahiu-afrofuturism-and-african.html

20 December 2021

African Women's Cinematic Storytelling through Sports: Empowering women and girls, raising awareness

African Women's Cinematic Storytelling through Sports:

Empowering women and girls, raising awareness

Report by Beti Ellerson

Sport has demonstrated its enormous capacity to propel women and girls’ empowerment. It mobilizes the global community and speaks to youth. It unites across national barriers and cultural differences. It is a powerful tool to convey important messages in a positive and celebratory environment – often to mass audiences. In addition, it teaches women and girls the values of teamwork, self-reliance and resilience; has a multiplier effect on their health, education and leadership development; contributes to self-esteem, builds social connections, and challenges harmful gender norms.

Many actors in the sport ecosystem are making significant strides to advance gender equality. For example, organizations are developing their sport at the grassroots level for women and girls; implementing gender equality strategies; creating their safeguarding policies; increasing the participation of women in leadership and at all levels of the profession; increasing resource allocation for women’s sports; doing better and more media coverage; marketing free from gender bias and promoting women’s achievements.

Furthermore, sport in its most basic form encourages balanced participation and has the capacity to promote gender equality (Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls). Through sport and physical activity, women and girls can be empowered and benefit from the positive impact that sport has on health and psychosocial conditions.

Female participation in sport also challenges stereotypes and social roles commonly associated with women. Sport can help women and girls demonstrate their talents and achievements to society by emphasizing their skills and abilities. This, in turn, improves self-esteem and self-confidence in women participants. Sport also offers opportunities for social interaction and friendship, which can raise awareness of gender roles among male counterparts and convey social and psychological benefits to both individuals and groups.

Source: https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2020/3/news-sport-for-generation-equality

African women in cinema are active participants in the empowerment and promotion of women and girls in sport as they direct their cameras towards the collective stories through documentary and fiction of the journeys of women and girls through sport.

Florence Ayisi's Zanzibar Soccer Queens offers a fascinating insight into women and sport in the majority Muslim population of Zanzibar, especially as it relates to culturally defined roles for women and their bodies.

Similarly, Oufsaiyed Elkhortoum (Khartoum Offside) by Marwa Zein, focuses on the dreams of Sara and her sport-loving friends who hope one day to form a Sudanese national soccer team and participate in the FIFA Women's World Cup, despite the fact that this image does not fit the Muslim society’s traditional image of a woman.

In the same way, Naziha Arebi's Freedom Fields traces the hopes of a team of women in post-revolution Libya, as soccer is the metaphor for empowerment and struggle.

Mayye Zayed's Ash Ya Captain | Lift Like a Girl is a coming of age story of 14-year-old Zebiba as she goes from victories to defeats, in pursuit of her dream to become a professional weightlifter.

Similarly, La Boxeuse | Boxing Girl by Iman Djionne follows the adventures of 17-year-old Adama after finding a pair of red boxing gloves.

Jessie Chisi's boxing story, Between Rings: The Esther Phiri Story focuses on her cousin a champion woman boxer, "torn between marriage and career because she could not have both worlds as one conflicted with the other".

In addition, women pursue nontraditional area such as motorcycling, which is the focus on Joan Kabugu's Throttle Queens.

Moreover, women's sport's movies include the stories of triumph by boys and men who pursue sport despite physical challenges. For instance, Yveline Nathalie Pontalier's film project about a team of deaf soccer players and Ngardy Conteh's documentary about an amputee soccer team of child survivors of the civil war in Sierra Leone.

These and other cinematic stories are among the posts on the African Women in Cinema Blog highlighting African women's storytelling through sports:

Boxing. Iman Djionne: La Boxeuse | Boxing Girl
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2020/02/festival-films-femmes-afrique-2020_17.html

Boxing. Jessie Chisi: Between Rings
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2014/09/jessie-chisi-talks-about-between-rings.html

Soccer. Naziha Arebi: Freedom Fields
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2019/09/naziha-arebi-freedom-fields-afrika-film.html

Soccer. Florence Bamba: Numero 10
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2021/01/recent-films-florence-bamba-numero-10.html

Soccer. Florence Ayisi: Soccer Queens
http://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2010/06/florence-ayisis-soccer-queens.html

Soccer. Marwa Zein: Oufsaiyed Elkhortoum | Khartoum Offside
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2019/01/oufsaiyed-elkhortoum-khartoum-offside.html

Weightlifting. Mayye Zayed: Ash Ya Captain | Lift Like a Girl
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2020/08/mayye-zayed-ash-ya-captain-lift-like.html

Motorcycling. Joan Kabugu: Throttle Queens
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2021/11/joan-kabugu-throttle-queens.html

Running. Amleset Muchie
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2021/02/nyaff-2021-amleset-muchie.html

Women and girls' empowerment
http://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2014/06/african-women-make-soccer-movies.html

Differently-abled - Child Soldiers
http://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2014/11/world-premiere-flying-stars-by-ngardy.html

Resistance - Revolution
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2011/09/rama-thiaw-young-filmmaker-in-struggle.html

Deaf culture
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2015/01/yveline-nathalie-pontalier-lance-une.html

Conflict resolution
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2013/02/fespaco-2013-rumbi-katedza-team-l.html

19 December 2021

Black Camera. Part 3: The Documentary Record: Statements, Declarations, Resolutions, Manifestos - Volume 13, Number 1, 2021

Black Camera: An International Film Journal

African Cinema: Manifesto & Practice for Cultural Decolonization

Part 3: The Documentary Record: Statements, Declarations, Resolutions, Manifestos

The New Series: Volume 13, Number 1, 2021

https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/46939/online

The latest issue of Black Camera: An International Film Journal concludes a two-year, three-part collaboration with Gaston Kaboré, filmmaker and director of IMAGINE Film Institute, and the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO), a major biannual festival devoted to African and Black diasporic cinemas.

Announcing the special 3-part series by BLACK CAMERA:

The first issue in the collaboration covers the formation, evolution and challenges of FESPACO. The second addresses colonial antecedents, constituents, theory and articulations. The final issue includes statements, declarations, resolutions and manifestos. Together, the issues constitute about 2,000 pages.

A scholarly publication supported by The Media School, the journal is edited by professor Michael Martin.

18 December 2021

Men through a Female Gaze: Gendered Experiences of Men in Films by African Women

Men through a Female Gaze:

Gendered Experiences of Men in Films by African Women

In many films by African women about men and boys, gendered experiences through a female gaze reveal a particular sensitivity and perspective.

Yvonne Jila of the Harare-based International Images Film Festival (IIFF) for Women emphasizes the importance of films that "portray men as positive role models and great allies to women by recognizing that the human struggle is common to all and is not gender specific."

Siza Mukwedini's Mukanya was inspired by conversations around the state of Zimbabwe as well as African fathers in the face of patriarchy and changing perspectives of what fatherhood is all about.
From a past marred by drunkenness and violence, the village menace, Mukanya, embarks on a journey to redeem himself by saving his son, who has become a reflection of Mukanya’s failures as a father. This is the journey of two men transforming into fathers.

Twiggy Matiwana's The Bicycle Man shows a sensitive side of the manner in which a man deals with what is generally viewed as a woman’s illness: breast cancer.

In A Tale of Love and Desire, Leyla Bouzid wanted to talk about a shy young man, an experience that exists but that is rarely represented. Stuck in clichés the only representations of men of North African origin are displayed of a very virile, visible masculinity.

In Towards Tenderness, Alice Diop searched for what it was to be a man, the difficulty to love, the difficulty of being and becoming a man in a ultra-sexualised world marked by advertising images, where love is reduced to a consumer product (Sylvie Braibant)

At the 2011 edition of the Harare-based International Images Film Festival (IIFF) for Women the category Best Male Against Gender-based Violence was introduced to highlight the role of men as active players in the fight against gender-based violence. Similarly, the "New Man" section of the Festival introduced screenings of films that highlighted a new consciousness of what it takes to fulfill the role of a responsible, caring and loving “New Man” in African societies. In addition, The African Fathers Initiative of Zimbabwe was very visible at the awards event. The African Fathers Initiative describes its purposes as follows: the African Fathers Initiative is an Africa-wide organization aiming at improving the well-being of children and families by promoting involved, responsible and committed fathers. We aim to build an African consensus that active involved fathers can improve men, women and children’s lives. From our base in Harare, Zimbabwe we involve all men and women who want to know more about the value of fathering and fatherhood initiatives throughout Africa.

A selection of articles about gendered experiences of men in films by African women
on the African Women in Cinema Blog:

Delphine Kabore: Nos Voisins (Our neighbors)
http://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2021/10/delphine-kabore-nos-voisins-our.html

Leyla Bouzid: A tale of love and desire
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2021/09/a-tale-of-love-desire-leyla-bouzid-falila-gbadamassi.html

Anissa Daoud: Le bain (The bath)
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2021/04/vues-dafrique-anissa-daoud-le-bain-bath.html

Aicha Macky: Zinder
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2021/04/aicha-macky-zinder.html

Sofia Alaoui, laureate: «Qu'importe si les bêtes meurent» | "So What if the Goats Die"
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2021/03/cesar-2021-sofia-alaoui-laureate-le.html

Josza Anjembe: Baltringe
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2020/05/recent-films-josza-anjembe-baltringue.html

Marie Clémentine Dusabejambo: Icyasha (Etiquette)
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2019/02/fespaco-2019-icyasha-etiquette-byde.html

Mukanya, Siza Mukwedini, Zimbabwe
http://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2018/08/iiff-2018-international-images-film_50.html

A conversation with Twiggy Matiwana | Une conversation avec Twiggy Matiwana - South Africa | Afrique du Sud
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-conversation-with-twiggy-matiwana-une.html

When Alice Diop takes us "towards masculine tenderness" | Quand Alice Diop nous entraîne "vers la tendresse" au masculin
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2016/03/when-alice-diop-takes-us-towards.html

Alice Diop: "It is up to us to work on our own complexes"
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2011/12/alice-diop-it-is-up-to-us-to-work-on.html

See also:
Gendered representations of Africans in the French Hexagon: An Analysis of La Noire de... by Ousmane Sembene and Med Hondo's Soleil O
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2009/05/gendered-representations-of-africans.html

17 December 2021

Vanessa Fernandes: Focus on Guinean Film - Utopia UK Portuguese Film Festival 2021

Vanessa Fernandes: Focus on Guinean Film

Utopia UK Portuguese Film Festival 2021

The Female Gaze in 12 Films
19 December 2021 15h00 (GMT)

Events available to UK audiences
Q&A with the filmmaker

https://www.festival-utopia.org/guinean-film
Image: Facebook

Tradition and Imagination - Tradição e Imaginação
2018, 4’32”
A film narrating memories of a past, of slavery in Beni.

Her Destiny - Si Destino
2015, 21’37”
After losing her mother and sister to an accident in Guiné Bissau, Fatinha moves to Portugal with her father, Abdhula. He decides to remarry. The issue of the “purification”, (female genital mutilation) of Fatinha, now eleven, comes up when Fatumata, the bride’s grandmother, enters their lives. This begins to rock Fatinha’s world, especially in her dreams, "a kind of rêverie" where she walks in a mystic forest and confronts her fears of a situation she doesn’t even understand, but can certainly feel. The film addresses the issue of family decision in the face of tradition even when far away from home.

Bio
Vanessa Fernandes is a filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist from Guinéa-Bissau

16 December 2021

Death, loss and mourning in films by and about African women

Death, loss and mourning

in films by and about African women

by Beti Ellerson

In the ending chant at the final scene of Mossane, as the procession carrying Mossane’s body passes the ubiquitous baobab tree, a recurrent image throughout the film, Yandé Codou Sène completes the Serer myth of the beautiful Mossane, punctuating the verse with effusive praise, and unknowable questions--since it is etched in Serer legend, has always been, and will continue to be:

Who chose our village
laying Mossane on its shores?

Sparkling pearl
at the merchants

Sweet calabash
so fresh and so fragile

In the blue sky
like a forestand its haughty bouquet of palm trees
before the axe

O Mossane,
magnificent emblem of the sun

Around you, there is no rush

It is fate that has render us deaf
to your anguish

O Mossane
in our songs
your face forever radiant
O Pearl of Mbissel

Taken away at such a young age
Roog did say
that you would only have fourteen winters

Do you remember that day?
A cloud of dust
enveloping Mbissel

Mossane, sister of Ngor
reposes
It is the end of her night

Who chose our village,
laying Mossane on its shores?

Notes to continue...

A subtext of the two fiction films, Sous la clarté de la lune and Pour la nuit, is death and separation from the African mother. At the beginning of Isabelle Boni-Claverie's film Pour la nuit (For the Night, 2004), the young woman Muriel, raised by her European father and African mother in France, buries her mother; it is at the funeral that her shame of her mother’s African-ness, her mother’s speech, her voice, surfaces. Both father and daughter reveal to each other for the first time, at the site of the African woman’s reposed body, the tensions that surrounded their relationship to her African-ness. The father accuses the daughter of being ashamed of her mother because she was African; the daughter accuses the father of not really being interested in understanding his wife, knowing her deeply, knowing who she was. Though this beginning is only a brief part of the story in this fiction short, it provides the context for the emotional drama that ensues as Muriel seeks to free herself. In Sous la clarté de la lune (Under the Moonlight, 2004) by Apolline Traoré from Burkina Faso, young Martine has become someone very different, having being raised in Europe by her European father, rather than in Africa by her African mother. The uprooted Martine, returns briefly to Africa with her father, discovering her African roots through her mother. And yet, she does not realize the woman’s relationship to her, as she was kidnapped by her father while still a baby, a trauma of which her mother suffered a double loss, her daughter and her voice, as she was rendered speechless. Upon Martine's brief return the mother recovers her voice and rediscovers her daughter, only to lose her again to death.

***

Refusal that ultimately ends in death

Mossane, Beletech (Harvest 3000, Haile Gerima) and Diouana (La Noire de..., Ousmane Sembene) die in very different stories, the reason leading up to their death equally dissimilar. And yet the act of refusal plays a role in the deaths.

In Safi Faye’s Mossane rebellion and resistance are deeply rooted in the story, and it is ultimately Mossane's refusal that she pays with her life. And yet it is her mother Mingue who loses the most, her daughter—who she sacrifices for financial comfort, and the dowry which she will not receive—since Mossane will not be "delivered". Safi Faye implies that the consciousness raising begins after the death of Mossane—when the story has ended. It is then that Mingue realizes her complicity and understands the consequences. If she had only listened more closely to Mam, if she had not been deaf to the words of her daughter who demanded to make her own choices.

At the closing sequence, as Mingué, followed by the other villagers run sorrowfully towards the sea at the sound of the death knell, Mam’s voice is heard relating the end of the legend: "Never forget: Siga, daughter of Leona, Yacine of Dioffior. They left before getting married." As the same group stands stricken with grief after Mossane’s body is retrieved from the sea, Mam walks pass them as she completes her refrain: "All left, taken away with their virtues. Mossane is gone." Mam’s storytelling dissolves into the continuing action of the film’s final sequence, revealing the remaining elements of the legend, which now includes Mossane. That Leona's daughter Siga was taken away 400 years ago, followed by Dioffior's daughter Yacine 200 years later, both like Mossane before they were married, and now 200 years in the present, Mossane has also been taken away.

Beletech refuses to be confined to the strict gender role assigned to girls/women. As if a premonition, right before her death she declares, looking directly at the camera: "Even if I am a woman, I will not submit, I am not afraid". In part, her death results from her transgression of the boundaries of work, insisting on taking the freedom to play, in the same way that the boys are allowed. She acknowledges this as she runs frantically down the hill to save the cow that is in the midst of the imminent floodwaters: "Oh my misfortune, I wish I had not gone to play. Oh my bad luck! What’s going to happen to me?" She indeed recalls the earlier warning of her master: "Tend the cattle—See that none gets lost. Quick! I’m warning you. If just one is missing you’ll pay with your life." Beletech's mother is inconsolable. In the tradition of shaving the women’s hair, the spectator takes part in what seems to be the entire shaving ritual, as each strand of the mother's hair is removed. With their shaven heads, the grief-stricken mother and grandmother prepare the meal. The mourning around the smoldering fire in the smoked-filled room installs more drama.

Also a foreboding, during a scene in the first sequence of La noire de..., after her arrival to France and a tour of the apartment where she will be living with her employers, Diouana cleans the bathtub. Her daydreams are increasingly in the form of muses, of flashbacks to Dakar, relating past events that lead to her journey to France. She feels increasingly isolated, imprisoned, she becomes despondent. Diouana begins to make a mental note of the acts of betrayal she experiences from her employers: she is given an apron to wear, she is told to take off her high heel shoes, she is called lazy, she has not visited France as she was promised.

Her only link to Africa is the mask that she presented as a gift to her employers while still in Dakar. She takes it from the wall, and again muses about Dakar. Her ultimate refusal and resistance comes when "Madame" attempts to reclaim the mask. Diouana refuses. In her final break with the job and all its trappings, she refuses the money that "Monsieur" counts out to her. Falling to her knees, she sobs silently.

While preparing her suitcase, Diouana recounts the mistreatment that she has endured, especially by "Madame". As she enumerates the litany of misdeeds, she repeats "never again". She dresses, coifs her hair continuing to recall the list of offenses. Leaving the room and the camera frame, she goes to the bathroom. The door shut, the camera cuts to the inside, revealing her lifeless body in a bathtub filled with bloody water.

Diouana's suicide is the final rebellion against her employer: the ultimate refusal to be a slave.

African Women in Cinema: Stories of Mothers

African Women in Cinema: Stories of Mothers

On the timeline of women's lives are the myriad stories of the hope of childbirth, the fear of it not happening, societal expectations of motherhood, the complexities of mother-daughter relationships, memories of mothers, stories of aging and caregiving. Of these experiences, African women in cinema weave stories of mothers--many of them, their own.

Following is a selection of cinematic stories of mothers by African women in screen culture. Reworked as part II of the article, African women, screen culture and practices of Motherwork

(This article will be updated to include current works):

In the fictional semi-autobiographical film, The Body Beautiful (1991), Nigerian-British Ngozi Onwurah casts her real-life mother, Madge, a white woman, in a multilayered story at the intersection of race--focusing on her bi-raciality, and the notion of beauty and the body--using her mother's experience with the crippling effects of arthritis, and her bout with breast cancer and the subsequent mastectomy. She hauntingly illustrates the societal privileging of the youthful, "perfect" body. It is especially moving to observe Ngozi Onwurah's mother, Madge, as the survivor of breast cancer, willingly present her body as text for the story, as her daughter explores this complex and remarkable phenomenon.

While narrating in voice-off in Les Enfants du Blanc (2000), Sarah Bouyain recalls her childhood summer vacations in Burkina Faso, with her paternal grandmother, Jeanne Bouyain. She also remembers her great grandmother Diouldé Boly who refused to speak in French because it brought back painful memories. These remembrances form the basis of her family-history meetings with her grandmother, visualized in the documentary. Her recollections are framed in a sequence of questions to which her grandmother responds in detail, sometimes elaborated by elements of Sarah’s research, which the latter narrates in voice-off. The internal journeys with her grandmother also entail voyages through the family photo albums, chats together during daily chores. Her grandmother’s remembrances uncover a little known phenomenon of French history of which Jeanne’s mother was directly concerned: the abduction and forced concubinage by French colonials of African women. The other thread to the story is the forced placement of the mixed-race children of these unions, often against the will of their families, into orphanages; Sarah Bouyain’s grandmother, who later was able to rejoin her mother, recalls this sad period in her life as her granddaughter looks on mournfully. Sarah, filmmaker, researcher, family historian, is also witness, inscribed into this aching multi-layered history of her family. Though Sarah Bouyain attempted to distance herself from any similarities to the protagonist’s story in the fiction film, Notre étrangère | The Place in Between (2010)--in real life Sarah Bouyain's mother is white European and her father is African, and her search is of a very different nature--there are subtle aspects that give hints of an autobiographical consciousness: the recurrent themes of belonging, language and place. Elements of departure and return, the leitmotif of the film, are structured in parallel stories. Amy, who has not had contact with her mother since she was an infant, leaves France for Burkina Faso to find her. As the story unfolds, it is revealed that she had left home years before en route to France, in search of her daughter. The separation of mother/othermother(s) and daughter/otherdaughter(s) is another powerful thread that runs through the film.

Claude Haffner focuses most of the story in Noire ici, Blanche là-bas | Footprints of My Other (2012) on her second return voyage to the land of her birth. During her initial visit she was accompanied by her mother. She describes this visit as experiencing the reality of the Congo as she hid behind her mother. The second journey, which was planned around the shooting of the documentary, was made alone; having been “liberated”, she was searching for her own place among her Congolese family. In the film she talks about reconciling with her mother having better understood where she comes from, beginning to respect her experiences, becoming closer to her. Reconciliation of course implies that there were issues that had to be resolved. She explains what prevented reconciliation before the experience with making the film: I felt secondary to my mother’s concerns about her family in the Congo. I thought she spent too much time dealing with them and not enough on us. I suffered from her "absence." With age, one finally understands the complexity of life, and if one follows the path of wisdom, one is able to forgive. Moreover, she realized that in order to tell the complexities of this story she would have to enter into it. Hence, her autobiographical consciousness unveiled during the filmmaking process. She explains: “The film should redefine itself as the shooting unfolds in the same way that the filmmaker redefines herself in relation to her initial idea and to her subject. This is evident in the fact that in 2004 I could not foresee that I would be expecting a child after having filmed in the Congo, and that I would actually include myself, while pregnant, during the scenes in Alsace. Somehow, the film helped me to define my identity and my place between Europe and Africa and to become aware of the richness that I possess to have come from a double culture or perhaps I should say, multiple.” (African Women in Cinema Blog)

A subtext of the two fiction films, Sous la clarté de la lune and Pour la nuit, is death and separation from the African mother. At the beginning of Isabelle Boni-Claverie's film Pour la nuit (For the Night, 2004), the young woman Muriel, raised by her European father and African mother in France, buries her mother; it is at the funeral that her shame of her mother’s African-ness, her mother’s speech, her voice, surfaces. Both father and daughter reveal to each other for the first time, at the site of the African woman’s reposed body, the tensions that surrounded their relationship to her African-ness. The father accuses the daughter of being ashamed of her mother because she was African; the daughter accuses the father of not really being interested in understanding his wife, knowing her deeply, knowing who she was. Though this beginning is only a brief part of the story in this fiction short, it provides the context for the emotional drama that ensues as Muriel seeks to free herself. In Sous la clarté de la lune (Under the Moonlight, 2004) by Apolline Traoré from Burkina Faso, young Martine has become someone very different, having being raised in Europe by her European father, rather than in Africa by her African mother. The uprooted Martine, returns to Africa, discovering her African roots through her mother. And yet, she does not realize the woman’s relationship to her, as she was kidnapped by her father while still a baby, a trauma of which her mother suffered a double loss, her daughter and her voice, as she was rendered mute. Upon Martine's brief return the mother recovers her voice and rediscovers her daughter, only to lose her again to death.

In Orphanage of Mygoma (2008), commissioned by Aljazeera, Taghreed Elsanhouri sets out to Sudan to make a film about the children brought to the Mygoma Orphanage in Karthoum after being abandoned by their unwed mothers. She encounters baby Abdelsamih, blind, having lost his eyes to cancer as a baby, and incorporates the emotional journey of growing close to him while making the film. From this experience she evolved from exploring filmmaker to ultimately, an engaging mother, he becomes her son.

Aïcha Elhadj Macky was only five years old when her mother died after childbirth. It is this trauma that Aïcha, who is married, still without children, reconstructs in L'arbre sans fruit | The Fruitless Tree (2016) about infertility and its disorder. She starts with childbirth: the calm, the esteemed advice of the midwife, the fatigue of the mother, the arrival of the child. Then a spoken letter that refers back to it: "Dear Mother, behind the camera, I tremble throughout my body"; and before concluding: "In my sleepless nights, your spirit guides my steps."

In Children of the Mountain (2016) by Priscilla Yawa Anany a woman who gives birth to a deformed and sickly child. Because she’s criticized and blamed for her child’s conditions, she becomes determined to do everything in her power to find a cure for him. When all fails and she becomes hopeless, she’s pushed to getting rid of her child. (From film description)

Françoise Ellong's W.A.K.A - « pour son fils elle est prête à tout… » | “for her son she is ready for anything” (2013) reveals the unraveling world of Mathilde/Maryline, a single mother desperate to care for her child. Françoise has this to say about the film: "The theme of the film was the result of a casual conversation that I had when dining with friends. During the discussion, I hear: "... in any case she is not a good mother." Is there a manual somewhere that follows to the letter what automatically makes one a good mother or not? Or does it depend on each person’s experience? The idea of the film resulted from this. Prostitution is a pretext in the film to talk about the journey and struggle of a woman—both as a woman and as a mother." (African Women in Cinema Blog)

Moroccan Maryam Touzani's Adam (2019) centers on the inner experiences of Abla and Samia whose interior journeys bring them together as they confront the myriad experiences of motherhood. Abla, a widow with little means, caring for her young daughter, brings into her household Samia, pregnant and unmarried, in a society that condemns the situation in which she finds herself.

The eponymous character of the film Sofia (2018) by Meryem Benm'Barek, is also pregnant in a Moroccan society that criminalizes motherhood outside of marriage. She is encircled in a world of women: mother, aunt, cousin, who work together to protect her and also the honour of women.

Cecile Mulombe Mbombe—cinematographer, and Pauline Mulombe—filmmaker, two sisters, talk about their lives, their experiences, and the film, Tout le monde a des raisons d'en vouloir à sa mère (Everyone has Reasons to be Angry with her Mother) 2010, which they made together. Pauline has this to say about the film: The protagonists, the daughters...respect their cultural heritage but they want to live their lives as they see fit. The film is located principally within the context of tolerance, indeed acceptance, by their mother, of their multi-culturalism and their reality. The youngest wants to enjoy herself and grow and develop by making the most of European social and cultural life. The middle daughter wants to utilize all of the possibilities available to resolve her problems, even if it means doing things that are unthinkable in her culture of origin, such as taking the birth control pill when still an adolescent. The oldest, even if she does not openly show her homosexuality, knows that she is 100% gay. (African Women in Cinema Blog)

15 December 2021

African Women in Cinema: Stories of Home and Homeland

African Women in Cinema:

Stories of Home and Homeland

"I say home is where my mother is"--Akuol Garang de Mabior

Then I ask, "where is home when your mother dies?" Sister Yonide responds to me: "home is where your mother is buried."

The notion of home for many transnational African women of the screen is fluid or situational, an experience that is best described by James Baldwin, the renowned expatriate writer: “you take your home with you. You’d better. Otherwise you're homeless”. Or still, Josephine Baker, who was the embodiment of this duality, and was perhaps one of the first transnational Africana women of international stature. Embracing her two countries, she describes it in this way: “J’ai deux amours, mon pays et Paris (I have two loves, my country and Paris).”

Notes to continue...

Akuol de Mbior: Home is where my mother is
What does it mean to be from a place I have never called home? So many young South Sudanese people were born and raised outside of the country and yet, whenever there is the tiniest shimmer of hope, people return.

Lucy Gebre-Egziabher: Home is always there, the notion of home

During an interview with Lucy Gebre-Egziabher at Fespaco in 1997, having settled in the United States, she reflected, in a Baldwinian manner, on the idea of home: "being in Burkina, which is very close to life in Ethiopia, it took me back home. And it made me realize, of course, home is always there. The notion of home."

Jihan el Tahri: one spends one’s life saying, I’m Egyptian, and when you go back to Egypt you feel totally out of place

"My dad was a diplomat and we moved around my whole childhood…I was born in Lebanon, then we went to Panama, Finland, England, and all over the chart…I only went back to Egypt when I was around thirteen. And that was a bit of a shock because one spends one’s life saying, I’m Egyptian, and when you go back to Egypt you feel totally out of place, you barely speak the language and all the details you don’t know about, so it took some adjusting because that was home and that was the first time that I had been to the home that had been attached to us, basically.

Theresa Traoré Dahlberg: My two homelands
I enjoyed having two homes in different countries [Sweden and Burkina Faso], and it helped me to get a greater understanding and perspective of different cultures and values.

Hachimiya Ahamada: Homeland Dreams of Comores
These three films, [Feu leur rêve, The Ylang Ylang Residence and Ashes of Dreams] relate the story of the house in the homeland: the ideal home that takes time to build or to be completed. Our parents thought at first it would be the 'home to settle in' and then over time it became the 'vacation home' and as time passed it became the 'grave house' because the descendants return less and some do not come at all. To build one’s home is to leave one’s mark in the native village in which one has been long absent. As a trilogy these three films allowed me to explore the fate of these uninhabited houses waiting for their owners who have remained in France or elsewhere.

Feu leur rêve, my graduation film, written in a poetic way, recounts a fantasy Comoros while still in Dunkerque. The Ylang Ylang Residence, my first short fiction film, relates how the islanders living in houses made of straw or sheet metal, are not able to benefit from the permanent structures of the absent migrants. L’Ivresse d’une Oasis closes the chapter of my exploration of the subject of the house, and going further by traveling on all four islands of the Comoros archipelago in search of its Comorian identity.

Ivresse d’une Oasis relates the unfulfilled need of the islanders to achieve their dreams. They leave in order to have it better when they return, always with the idea of building the concrete house. But the difficulty in achieving this dream is that the perfect home is merely a mirage. I translate the film in English as Ashes of Dreams. Dreams that in the end send the islanders in transit, somewhere, either to France or to Mayotte and Reunion. And these constructed foundations continue to wait...
Ashes of dreams is a film written in first person singular and then first person plural. I wanted to go back to the Grande Comore, to the family, without the label of 'I’ve come from...' to measure the temperature of the family bond. But time creates a fracture even with those with which there are blood ties. I remember a comment by someone who said 'I come back in order not to stay'. It's a rather difficult acknowledgement to make. Then also in this film, I wanted to break the image of the idyllic island of the Comoros by meeting the residents of the other islands in order to get the secrets of the real Comoros. I found a lead: Comorian migration is constantly in motion, it has always been throughout its history. By economic migration, many of the islanders dream of leaving their villages in order to have it better when they return. From the island of Anjouan, some go some 70 km in order to reach Mayotte...the islanders crossed the sea by a kwassa-kwassa, a fishing boat. The death toll continues to increase as a result of this crossing. Thousands of people have died in silence. The sea has become their tomb in the place of a house.

Jacqueline Nsiah: No Place Like Home
In “No Place Like Home” we talk to the first generation from various parts of Africa and ask why they left and why they go to an Afro Shop, a term that is coined in the new world, there's no place called Afro Shop on the continent, which in itself is very interesting. I was very interested in the sensory experience when entering an Afro Shop, what do you feel, smell or taste when you enter the Afro Shop? Does it remind you of home? What is home? And where is home? “No Place Like Home” and “Returning from exile” are absolutely linked. To me “No Place Like Home” is the journey and “Returning from exile” is the arrival.

Ndèye Marame Guèye: An African Woman on the Seine
Woman speaking to Ndèye Marame Guèye: “Someone like me who was born in France but is of foreign origins, it is difficult to find one’s home, one’s space. For us when in France “my country” is my ancestral homeland. But when I am in this homeland, “my country” is France.”

Ndèye Marame Guèye: “And who are you?”

Woman: “Good question, I’m still searching.”

14 December 2021

African Women in Cinema Addressing Mental Health in Africa and the Diaspora

African Women in Cinema Addressing Mental Health

in Africa and the Diaspora

Report by Beti Ellerson

Notes continuing...

In Une fenêtre ouverte (An open window, 2005) Khady Sylla's camera is the mirror into which she gazes directly as she addresses the viewers, interrogating their own sense of sanity. She asks: "You look at yourself in a broken mirror. You see pieces of your face. Your face is crumbling. And whoever looks at you in the broken mirror, sees pieces of images of your face. Which of you will come to reconstruct the puzzle? Are you not, perhaps, on the same side of the mirror?" She continues the monologue with the disquieting admission of her own mental illness. The film is a space in which Khady Sylla tries to open for Aminta Ngomgui, the protagonist of the story, as well as for herself, and for the public, on the world of mental illness.

Similarly, Ledet Muleta, a psychiatric nurse in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area addresses the ways that mental illness is stigmatized in Africa and in African diaspora communities. The objective of her film project is to empower those who are affected, to build awareness and to find more effective solutions.

In the same way, Rumba Katedza explores the inner world of a young woman whose traumatic experiences of war continue to haunt her, even in the “safe” country where she finds “refuge": I saw a news piece on refugees in the UK. What struck me about the stories was how so many of the people still experienced fear every day of their lives because they were still haunted by the experiences they went through. Unfortunately, no one seemed to be helping them psychologically.

Alice Diop’s On Call takes the viewer, huit clos, into a small room in the hospital where newly-arrived migrants may seek consultation, during which the patient has access to the doctor, assisted by a psychiatrist and a social worker: as they reveal the psychological toll of the precariousness of their existence.

The purpose of Noëlle Kenmoe's film is to raise awareness and to challenge societal perceptions regarding the realities of another mental health issue, autism in children in Africa. Because of this disorder, they are often marginalized and rejected. Based on their behavior they are viewed as crazy, as reincarnations of the devil, among other damning perceptions. Hence, beyond being a handicap or disorder, autism becomes a social condemnation.

The issues around social exclusion are recurring themes in Nathalie Pontalier's film projects. In her film Le maréchalat du roi-Dieu (The Marshal of the God-king, 2012), the protagonist André Ondo Mba suffers from acute paranoid schizophrenia and has become deaf. For the past twenty years he writes on walls, facades, and other parapets of Libreville, the Gabonese capital. The contents of his messages often remain obscure to the viewers who venture there. His two sons who care for him attempt to navigate his world of the imaginary.

In the short fiction, Taajabone, Fatoumata Bathily highlights the debilitating effects of depression that traumatize a young woman, who is consumed with guilt after the death of her husband. While Aisha Jama, relates the coping mechanisms that a young Black Muslim woman employs to confront anxiety in the film Neefso (Breathe). Nora Awolowo challenges the perception of the elated mother after the birth of her child. In Baby Blues she tackles the hidden issue of postpartum depression.

Tracing memories at the onset of cognitive decline, a mental health issue that family's face throughout the globe as an elder reaches her or his golden age, though for many, even before, is an increasingly visible theme in films. Karima Saïdi focuses the camera on her own mother Aïcha who develops Alzheimer’s. She constructs a film portrait journeying with her mother back into her past. More broadly, Mmabatho Monthsho addresses the mulitple issues around cognitive decline especially in the context of caregiving, in the "hope of inspiring support and conversations about condition and the physical, psychological, and social burden on female family caregivers."

A selection of articles on the African Women in Cinema Blog regarding African women addressing mental health issues in Africa and throughout the African Diaspora:

#Alzheimers

Karima Saidi: Dans la maison | A Way Home

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2021/04/artetv-karima-saidi-dans-la-maison-way.html

#anxiety

Aisha Jama: Neefso | Breathe

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2020/08/recent-films-aisha-jama-neefso-breathe.html

#autism

Noelle Kenmoe: Deux avril

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2021/01/raising-awareness-noelle-kenmoes-deux.html

#bipolar

Ledet Muleta: Chula

http://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2016/07/producer-ledet-muleta-launches.html