The purpose of the African Women in Cinema Blog is to provide a space to discuss diverse topics relating to African women in cinema--filmmakers, actors, producers, and all film professionals. The blog is a public forum of the Centre for the Study and Research of African Women in Cinema.

Le Blog sur les femmes africaines dans le cinéma est un espace pour l'échange d'informations concernant les réalisatrices, comédiennes, productrices, critiques et toutes professionnelles dans ce domaine. Ceci sert de forum public du Centre pour l'étude et la recherche des femmes africaines dans le cinémas.

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24 March 2023

Ndèye Fatou Fall: Walk On My Own - Women’s Voices Now Film Festival 2023 winner for Best Youth Documentary

Ndèye Fatou Fall
Walk On My Own
Women’s Voices Now Film Festival 2023
Winner for Best Youth Documentary

Ndèye Fatou Fall
Walk On My Own
Senegal - 30 min - 2019

In her film, 13-year-old Ndèye Fatou Fall tells how her life has been affected by profound changes that occurred in her village a few years before she was born.

“My film is about the changes that have occurred in my community. Today, these social changes are of great importance, especially for children. If I’d been born in 1990, I would be married by now. Many communities still do harmful practices, like child marriage. Tradition is very strong, and to abandon these practices is difficult. When people from other countries watch the film, if they are still practicing child marriage and female genital cutting, they will wake up after they see this film and will want to stop doing those things.” – Ndèye Fatou Fall 

22 March 2023

Elles Tournent 2023. Table-Ronde: Comment tournent-elles | État des lieux des femmes devant et derrière la caméra

Elles Tournent 2023
Table-Ronde


How do they film? Status of women in front of and behind the camera

Comment tournent-elles ? État des lieux des femmes devant et derrière la caméra


Mercredi | Wednesday - 22 - 03 - 2023

14:00-18:00


FR |  Il s’agit de donner écho aux récentes études (2022) sur la place des réalisatrices dans le cinéma en Belgique et en Europe et d’échanger les données et expériences avec des réalisatrices en provenance d’autres régions non européennes.

EN |  The aim is to echo recent studies (2022) on the place of women directors in the Belgian and European film industry and to exchange data and experiences with women directors from other regions outside Europe.

- Sarah Sepulchre (professeure à l’Université catholique de Louvain);

- Une représentante du collectif Elles Font des Films (Belgique) ;

- Lise Perottet (Le Lab, France) ;

- Karin Heisecke (Fondation MaLisa, Allemagne) ;

- Flávia Neves, réalisatrice (Brésil)

- Kaltrina Krasniqi, réalisatrice (Kosovo),

- Zeina Daccache, réalisatrice (Liban)

- Josefina Morande, réalisatrice (Chili)

- Cyrielle Raingou, réalisatrice (Cameroun)

20 March 2023

FOCUS: Thérèse Sita Bella, Safi Faye et l'évolution de la pratique cinématographique des femmes africaines | the evolution of African women’s cinematic practice - 20 - 24 / 3 / 2023 - Belgique | Belgium

 


FOCUS:

Thérèse Sita Bella, Safi Faye et l'évolution de la pratique cinématographique des femmes africaines  

The evolution of African women’s cinematic practice

20 - 24 / 3 / 2023 


Des femmes ont écrit une partie de notre histoire du cinéma. Des femmes encore aujourd'hui écrivent cette histoire du cinéma. Certaines sont oubliées, marginalisées et éjectées dans la transmission de cette histoire. Avec Katy Lena Ndiaye, Beti Ellerson, Mahen Bonetti.


Women participated in the creation of African cinema history and continue in increasing numbers. Though some have been forgotten, marginalized and overlooked throughout the transmission of this history.

With Katy Lena Ndiaye, Beti Ellerson, Mahen Bonetti, in person or video-conference.


20.03.2023

Pioneers and trailblazers - Thérèse Sita-Bella, Safi Faye and the evolution of African women's cinematic practice. As the programming of the Focus was already organized at the announcement of the passing of Safi Faye, a spontaneous homage was paid to Safi Faye as part of the presentation. (Beti Ellerson, Centre for the Study and Research of African Women in Cinema).


21.03.2023

The political context of the film production of pioneer African women and their invisibility in Africa and the world (Mahen Bonetti, Founder of the New York African Film Festival)


22.03.2023

Screening of En attendant les hommes and Q&A with Katy Lena Ndiaye, the filmmaker.

Interview with Chantal Ndongo, the daughter of Thérèse Sita-Bella.


Screening of selected films by Safi Faye.


Ce Focus est initié par Rosine Mbakam dans le cadre de KASK & Conservatorium / School of Arts Gent, avec la collaboration de l' INSAS,  Tândor productions, Tândor films Cameroun, IndigiMood Films, Africa Film Festival Leuven.


This Focus was initiated by Rosine Mbakam through the KASK & Conservatorium / School of Arts Gent, with the collaboration of NSAS,  Tândor productions, Tândor films Cameroun, IndigiMood Films, Africa Film Festival Leuven.


Un hommage à Safi Faye


A homage to Safi Faye

14 March 2023

Exploring African Women’s Cinematic Practice as Womanist Work

Exploring African Women’s Cinematic Practice
as Womanist Work
Beti Ellerson

Black Camera
An International Film Journal
Indiana University Press
Volume 14, Number 2, Spring 2023
pp. 364-403

The womanist work in African women’s cinematic practice empowers, supports and promotes women in tandem with upholding the fight for racial, ethnic, social, political, and economic justice in their society and throughout the world. A selection of women’s voices contextualizes the notion of a womanistic standpoint as a conceptual framework that embodies their cinematic vision. Based on excerpts from interviews, critiques, citations, filmmakers’ statements, and intentions presented as leçons du cinéma, in their own voice, women tell their stories about filmmaking, their cinematic vision, their deci- sion-making, lessons learned.
Voices of a selection of African women in cinema doing womanist work.
Anita Afonu, Hachimiya Ahamada, Asmara Beraki, Mahen Bonetti, Isabelle Boni-Claverie, Leyla Bouzid, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Omah Diegu, Assia Djebar, Freida Ekotto, Nadia El Fani, Jihan El Tahri, Françoise Ellong, Taghreed Elsanhouri, Annette Mbaye d’Erneville, Safi Faye, Anne-Laure Folly Reimann, Claude Haffner, Mariama Hima, Jacqueline Kalimunda, Iman Kamel, Marthe Djilo Kamga, Musola Cathrine Kaseketi, Rumbi Katedza, Judy Kibinge, Matamba Kombila, Sarah Maldoror, Annette Kouamba Matondo, Beatrix Mugishagwe, Jacqueline Nsiah, Branwen Okpako, Ngozi Onwurah, Joyce Osei Owusu, Monique Mbeka Phoba, Karima Saïdi, Horria Saïhi, Alimata Salambéré, Zulfah Otto Sallies, Masepeke Sekhukhuni, Neveen Shalaby Khady Sylla, Mariama Sylla, Rama Thiaw, Mame Woury Thioubou, Najwa Tlili, Agatha Ukata, Zara Mahamat Yacoub, Rahel Zegeye 

08 March 2023

The African Women in Cinema Blog celebrates International Women's Day | Le Blog sur les femmes africaines dans le cinéma fête la journée internationale des femmes


The African Women in Cinema Blog celebrates International Women's Day
Le Blog sur les femmes africaines dans le cinéma fête la journée internationale des femmes

International Women's Day is celebrated in many countries around the world. It is a day when women are recognized for their achievements without regard to divisions, whether national, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic or political. It is an opportunity to take stock of past struggles and achievements, and above all, to prepare for the future and the opportunities that await future generations of women.

La Journée internationale des femmes est célébrée dans de nombreux pays à travers le monde. C'est un jour où les femmes sont reconnues pour leurs réalisations, sans égard aux divisions, qu'elles soient nationales, ethniques, linguistiques, culturelles, économiques ou politiques. C'est une occasion de faire le point sur les luttes et les réalisations passées, et surtout, de préparer l'avenir et les opportunités qui attendent les futures générations de femmes.

***

Since its creation in 2009 the African Women in Cinema Blog has promoted the advancement of research and communication relating to African women in cinema and using social media to encourage dialogue and the exchange of information, ideas, experiences and resources.

Depuis sa création en 2009 le Blog sur les femmes africaines dans le domaine cinématographique et de la culture visuelle à tenter de faire progresser la recherche et la communication relatives aux femmes africaines dans le cinéma et d'utiliser les médias sociaux pour promouvoir le dialogue et l'échange d'informations, d'idées, d'expériences et de ressources.



4th Edition of Women in Film Awards gala; an event that celebrates the drive, spirit and diversity of Kenyan women filmmakers



4th Edition of Women in Film Awards gala
an event that celebrates the drive, spirit and diversity of Kenyan women filmmakers
8 March 2023
Kenya National Theatre

Theme:
Through the eyes of the woman filmmaker: Celebrating creativity and Diversity


https://beyondthefilm.org/wifawardskenya/


The Women in Film Awards (WIFA) aims at bringing women filmmakers in Kenya together and providing a space where diversity of women voices, stories and creativity is equally recognized and celebrated.



01 March 2023

Remembering Safi Faye (1943-2023)

Remembering Safi Faye (1943-2023)


Safi Faye was born in Senegal in the Gueule Tapée neighborhood of Dakar in 1943. Raised in a large family that valued education, she received her teaching certificate and taught in the Dakar public schools. As a hostess at the First World Festival of Black Arts hosted by Senegal in 1966, she was introduced to the cultures of the world, and more importantly, realized the contributions of African and African diasporan civilizations on the world stage. She would meet anthropologist/filmmaker Jean Rouch who invited her to participate in his film. She would travel to Europe and other parts of Africa. In 1970 she enrolled at the Sorbonne in Paris where she learned to use the camera as a research tool. She then studied film at the Louis Lumière Film School also in Paris; there she made her first film La Passante. Other films followed, fourteen in total, notably the award winning Kaddu Beykat (1975) and Fad’jal (1979) and Mossane (1996). Using cinema as a tool for teaching and learning, Safi Faye aimed to teach future generations of Africans about their origins. The passion that she had for her continent and its people has been evident throughout her career as teacher, anthropologist, filmmaker. In 1972, she dared to make a film. She often talked fondly about the daughter she cherished, Zeïba, who was born in 1976; she was also a grandmother. In 2023 she joins the ancestors, where she lays to rest in her paternal native village of Fadial. But rather than a library burning down—a famous citation of Amadou Hampâté Bâ that she quotes in her legendary film Fad’jal, her story will remain alive, passed on to the next generation, as we continue in the oral tradition, to say her name—and show her work. Safi Faye, may the earth rest lightly upon you.


A description/synopsis of Safi Faye’s body of work:


La Passante. 1972. 10 min.

Safi Faye describes the making of La Passante: “It is the story of a beautiful African woman who arrives in Paris. Dreamlike, she notices that everyone watches her, admires her. Among her admirers she chooses a White man and allows him to dream, then a Black man who dreams as well. They watch her walk down the street. In fact, they are dreaming. That is not at all my reality; Baudelaire inspired me. I love poetry. It is precisely the poem of Baudelaire [À une passante] that exemplifies this". Excerpts from an interview with Cissé and Fall, in the Sud Week-End, 12, October 1996. Translation from French by Beti Ellerson 


Revanche (Revenge). 1973. 15 min.

A collective film project with other students at the Louis Lumière film school, about a madman on the Pont Neuf bridge. 


Kaddu Beykat. 1975. 95 min.

The story unfolds through the backdrop of an ongoing drought in the village, causing economic upheaval as groundnuts are its sole crop. In the film, Safi Faye depicts the ills and problems of a Senegalese peasantry bent under the yoke of an agricultural system dominated by groundnut cultivation. A culture that is imposed on them to the detriment of the food crops that allowed them to live. She challenges the authorities, but also proposes a reflection on the future through reforestation and the protection of nature. The film draws from her doctoral research. 


Fad'jal (Come and Work). 1979. 108 min.

Safi Faye: "Fad signifies “Arrive” and Jal means “Work”. “Work” because when you arrive at this farming village called Fadial, you must work. When you work, you’re happy, and if you don’t work, people will mock you". At the foot of a tree, the ancestor and a griot recount to the children in Wolof, the history of the village—its customs, its tradition, its creation; in contrast to the French education that they learn in school. In the film Safi Faye uses the famous quote by Amadou Hampâté Bâ, "in Africa, whenever an elder dies, it is as though a library has burnt down.” 


Goob na ñu (The Harvest is in). 1979. 30 min.

Like her films Kaddu Beykat and Fad’jal, Safi Faye focuses her camera on themes regarding the land and the peasantry. The film also deals with issues around crop cultivation during the harvest season. Similarly, the film draws from her doctoral research.


Man Sa Yay (I, Your Mother). 1980. 60 min.

Filmed while she was a guest professor at the Freie Universität in Berlin and co-produced with ZDF, Safi Faye explores the experiences of expatriate students. During an exchange of letters with his mother who hopes for his return, Moussa, a young Senegalese student in West Berlin feels the emotions of her words: “It’s me, your mother.”


Les ames au soleil (Souls in the Sun). 1981. 27 min.

Souls in the Sun, part of the United Nations, Women and Children in Africa program, draws on African women’s voices, as they relate the challenges of feeding their children and raising them in a healthy environment when confronted with the tasks of finding the information and necessary means to do so. 

Selbé et tant d'autres (Selbé and Many Others). 1981. 30 min.

Selbe’s husband has left the village to earn money, leaving her to take care of their large family, do the household chores and work in the field during the dry season. Throughout the film, she and the cohort of women discuss their condition. Commissioned by UNICEF (The United Nations Children's Fund), in a conversation between mother and daughter, the film details the dilemma of girls in the rural sector in attaining an education: "Mother, why don't you send me to school? I can't, everyday I gather salt, I do the cooking, I gather brushwood, I fetch the water. Because your father isn't there and you have to look after the goats. I can't send you to school. I sell cigarettes, I sell matches, I don't stop from dawn to dusk."


At the beginning of the film, the eponymous Selbé tells us that her mother made a song for her: "the song I sing is like our life, there is no rest for the poor." The song is repeated in the same way as the repetition of the cycle of daily activities: breastfeeding the child, grinding millet, fetching wood, preparing food. Similarly, there is the recurring discussion about the men who leave the village in search of work in Dakar but return with nothing. The song ends the film with a hopeful wish for the future: "Mother, mother of us all, do not give up, do not give up. Work in the fields until you drop. God why is this our fate? God find a better future for our children."


Trois ans cinq mois. 1979-1983. 30 min.

Trois ans cinq mois was filmed when Safi Faye was guest professor at the Freie Universität in Berlin. The documentary, produced by the German cultural association, Deutsche Akademische Austansch Dienst, relates the experiences of her own daughter as a young child, effortlessly adapting to the newfound culture.


Ambassades nourricières (Culinary Embassies). 1984. 58 min.

Through the diverse cuisines of the international emigrants who have settled in Paris: Russians, Armenians, Lebanese, Iranians, Spaniards, Indians, Japanese, other Asian communities, and Africans throughout the continent, they reveal the cultural expressions that show the spiritedness of the art of cooking, and in so doing share their individual histories of immigration and assimilation. From the series Regards sur la France, produced by INA and FR3. 


Racines noires (Black Roots). 1985. 11 min.

Safi Faye’s camera navigates the first edition of the Racines Noires, the “Black Roots” cultural event which took place in 1985 in Paris. At the event writers, artists, filmmakers, playwrights and actors come together to share their Black cultural heritage.


Elsie Haas, femme peintre et cinéaste d'Haiti (Elsie Haas, Woman Painter and Filmmaker from Haiti). 1985. 8 min.

Elsie Haas the Paris-based Haitian creative is at the same time plastic artist, painter and cineaste. She shares with Safi Faye the polyvalent nature of her work.


Tesito. 1989. 27 min. 

Tesito, which means “the force of my arm”, navigates the Casamance region, relating the daily experiences of the fisherwomen, whose strategy is to organize collectively to better survive. Their contribution to the national economy, largely ignored by official statistics, is re-evaluated in the film.

 

Mossane. 1996. 105 min.

Safi Faye: “This film is a song to women. The things that I find so beautiful, the things that I have lived, and that I have experienced or that I have been told.”

Mossane catapults a girl's voice and agency to the forefront. The film addresses the right of women to have power over their own bodies and desires, and the choice to marry who they choose, by framing the analysis of women's, indeed girls' rights, in the context of the broader discourse on the peasantry, education, custom and modernity. The prevailing themes that foreground girls'/women’s experiences within the rural sector and countryside, socio-economic matters, education, issues at the intersection of tradition and modernity, highlight the universality of Mossane.


Since its inception the African Women in Cinema Blog has featured the work of Safi Faye. Following are links to articles:


Safi Faye : La Grande Référence - 1943-2023 - A Tribute https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2023/02/safi-faye-1943-2023-tribute.html


Safi Faye: Man sa yay | I, your mother - Berlinale Forum Special Fiktionsbescheinigung 2023 https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2023/01/safi-faye-man-sa-yay-i-your-mother.html


Safi Faye's La Passante 50 years on: "I dared to make a film" https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2022/09/safi-fayes-la-passante-50-years-on.html


Safi Faye's Mossane at 25

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2021/08/safi-fayes-mossane-at-25.html


Black Camera: Safi Faye's Mossane: A Song to Women, to Beauty, to Africa by Beti Ellerson (Spring 2019)

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2019/05/black-camera-safi-fayes-mossane-song-to.html


Safi Faye : Selbe, one among many | Selbe et tant d'autres – restored/restauré en/in Wolof – African Film Festival New York 2018

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2018/05/safi-faye-selbe-one-among-many-selbe-et.html


Safi Faye : “Fad,jal” (Cannes Classics 2018)

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2018/05/safi-fayes-fadjal-cannes-classics-2018.html


Safi Faye to young filmmakers: “Dare! You are free to do whatever you want” by Mame Woury Thioubou

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2017/12/safi-faye-to-young-filmmakers-dare.html


Prix Safi Faye de la meilleure réalisatrice - Safi Faye Award for the best woman filmmaker - JCC - Journées Cinématographiques de Carthage.

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2015/11/prix-safi-faye-de-la-meilleure.html


Reflections on Safi Faye in Petit à Petit. Notes by Beti Ellerson https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2011/02/reflections-on-safi-faye-in-petit-petit.html


Safi Faye: Role Model | La Grande Référence

http://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2010/05/safi-faye-role-model.html


Gendered Sensibilities and Female Representation in African Cinema : An analysis of Mossane by Safi Faye and Ousmane Sembene's Moolaadé

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2009/04/gendered-sensibilities-and-female.html

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