AFRICAN WOMEN IN CINEMA BLOG: 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