African Women and Cinema--Stories of Mothers, Practices of Motherwork

African Women and Cinema--Stories of Mothers, Practices of Motherwork

Reflections by Beti Ellerson

 

Image: Mossane and her mother

Mossane by Safi Faye

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.  

 

"[Women and motherwork are]…in the center of what are typically seen as disjunctures, the places between human and nature, between private and public, between oppression and liberation." Hence, Patricia Hill Collins's term "motherwork" blurs the dichotomies in theorizations of motherhood and mothering that make distinctions between "private and public, family and work, the individual and the collective, identity as individual autonomy and identity growing from the collective self-determination of one’s group…." Furthermore, she locates the practice of "mothering the mind" in the myriad relationships between community othermothers. (Patricia Hill Collins, Shifting the Center: Race Class and Feminist Theorizing about Motherhood)

Similarly, as a theoretical framework, Catherine Obianuju Acholonu's notion of motherism involves the "dynamics of ordering, reordering, creating structures, building and rebuilding in cooperation with mother nature at all levels of human endeavor." Closely related to the concept of motherism is Wanuri Kahiu's idea of mothering nature: “my metaphor about Pumzi (2009) is life and sacrifice and that we ourselves have to mother mother nature. That we have to make sacrifices in order to live in this world. And that we have to know that our own behaviour will affect generations to come.” (Wanuri Kahiu, TEDx Forum On Afrofuturism In Popular Culture)

Of Annette Mbaye d’Erneville, Mère-bi: the mother of all--a title which she carries with great aplomb--Patricia Hill Collins's theory of “motherwork” and “othermothering” aptly applies. She has mentored scores of Senegalese and African feminists and nurtured a generation of Senegalese film spectators who have taken on the role of cultural producer in the forging of a Senegalese cinema culture.

Sarah Maldoror: "I am one of those modern women who try to combine work and family life, and just like it is for all the others, it's a problem for me. Children need a home and a mother. That's why I try to prepare and edit my films in Paris during the long summer vacation when the children are free and can come along." (Interview with Elin Clason, cited in Women and Film No 5-6 1974).

In a tribute to her mother Sarah Maldoror, Henda Ducados had this to say: …It is also important to talk about Sarah as a woman, and talk about this great love story that she had with our father which led to the two projects, Sambizanga and Monangambee… her view about feminism, about being a single mother, female head of household, taking care of two daughters and making sure that the collectivity was very important. Not looking at the individual but at the collective…She always consider my sister and I as individuals. It was tough to deal with that as a child, but as an adult I appreciate that even more. Here we are, I am asked to talk about our mother… Our childhood was never easy but it was fun and unpredictable…People coming in and out of the house all of the time, good hearted strangers babysitting us while Sarah traveled the world. Later on during my history class at the university, I was astonished by the fact that most of the historical figures of the sixties stayed with us in our kitchen and ate with us. There were very few rules that I could remember, but one was to leave regrets/adversity at the door. So thank you Sarah for being so courageous, and passing this on to us, as you gave us the strength to face my fears and venture out and have an impact in this world…

African women filmmakers highlight the solidarity among the entourage of women who offer childcare when they need to take time alone to work or to travel. Within their circle of women, these practices of othermothering encompass the grandmother, friends, cousins… Similarly, Ethiopian filmmaker Lucy Gebre-Egziabher emphasizes the experiences of many women as they take on the role of filmmaker in tandem with raising children, she recalls seeing a photograph: [While] behind the camera, she had her baby behind her on her back and she was directing. That was a most powerful image; it has stayed with me. To me that is an African woman filmmaker. She doesn't have the luxury to disengage her role as a wife or a mother and then become a filmmaker; she has to incorporate everything. (Sisters of the Screen: African Women and the Cinema)

Kenyan filmmaker Anne Mungai, who recalls the scene described by Lucy Gebre-Egziabher, realized that the most effective way to get her film completed was to incorporate her baby and her duties as a mother in her filmmaking activities: I had to go with my sixth-month-old baby on location. The village people had never seen a woman with a camera. I was holding my baby, carrying film tapes, they are really wondering how I am going to do it. I figure that the best thing to do was to breastfeed the baby, put it to sleep and then continue directing. The baby kept interfering, each time that I started to direct right in the middle it started to cry. I didn't know what to do, it clicked in my mind that the baby needed attention since I was no longer feeding it. So what I did was take the baby, give it to one of the people in the crowd, and make it part of the cast. (Harry Cahill, producer. Africa World Film. World of Film Foundation. 1993)

Similarly, while optimistic about women's capacity to juggle a filmmaking career and motherwork, Zimbabwean Porcia Mudavhanhu recalls a heartbreaking experience that tested her resolve: the greatest challenge in my career was when my youngest daughter refused to breast feed at six months because I was away for five days on a shoot. It was painful for me to come to terms with it, as I felt I had let my daughter down. (Wild track Newsletter, Zimbabwe)

The motherwork of African women in the instances where their daughters have influenced their work is multiple. Safi Faye coordinated her experiences as mother, homemaker and filmmaker as her film Mossane was evolving in her head, doing her daily chores and assisting her daughter with her schoolwork. Her endearing love for her daughter played an important part in the choice of theme and many of the decisions regarding the film: I don't know how Mossane (1996) was born. All that I know is that I have a daughter, my only daughter, who I cherish. And perhaps through these feelings I wanted to cherish Mossane, and to make her the most beautiful, the purest, and most virtuous. Safi Faye also had a desire to mirror her daughter in terms of her age-related experiences; her daughter and the protagonist were both fourteen years old, an age that she describes as a magical and elusive period of childhood. After a long and frustrating search, it was Safi Faye's daughter who suggested that her friend Magou Seck audition for the role. The affection and genuine love that she developed for the daughter/character was reflected off screen. As she was an orphan, Safi Faye took her into her family. (Sisters of the Screen: African Women and the Cinema, 2003)

Similarly, South African Zulfah Otto Sallies was fascinated by her daughter Muneera's evolution which is how the documentary Through the Eyes of My Daughter (2004) came about. “I don’t understand who that 15 year old who sleeps in my house is!” She uses her camera as the means to find out. In the film she focuses the lenses on her family, zooming into their world in the Bo-Kaap community of South Africa for an entire year. The cross-generational response to contemporary society is the thread running through the film, sometimes showing differing perspectives regarding the realities that the current generation confronts. The evolving story contrasts the apartheid-generation of Zulfah with teen-ager Muneera’s experiences in a democratic South Africa. In full view of the camera, one has a glimpse of the strong bond of the mother-daughter relationship. Zulfah Otto-Sallies invites the viewer into their world with all of the unpredictability that comes as a result. See: https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2011/10/zulfah-otto-sallies-filming-bo-kaap.html

In Salem Mekuria's desire to chronicle the experiences of her brother and her best friend, fighting on opposite sides during the Ethiopian revolution and civil war that ensued, the documentary film Ye Wonz Maibel (Deluge, 1995) unfolds. The story was inspired by Salem Mekuria's daughter, born and raised in the United States, who longed to know about the fate of her uncle. Hence, she was able to actively participate in the making of the film.

Véronique Doumbé teamed with her daughter Malika Franklin to produce the film, Woman to Women (2013). Véronique describes the film in this way: The idea of Woman to Woman grew out of discussions with mothers of teenagers about issues relating to being a woman or becoming one. Producing Woman to Woman is exciting because it touches two areas that matter most in my life, being a mother and making films. Malika recalls her experiences with the film: I joined the film after my mother had already begun because I felt it was important to have a teenager's perspective. The film's intention is for mothers and daughters to better understand each other and to have open conversations. This could not be done if the conversation was told only through a mother's eyes. (From the Woman to Women Press Kit)

FIFF Festival International du Film de Fribourg 2016 – Roundtable/Table ronde: Etre réalisatrice en Afrique | To be a woman filmmaker in Africa. Claire & Angèle, Nadia, Pocas, Rama, in conversation:

Claire Diao, moderator: We have talked about being a woman filmmaker, about solidarity, and now I would like to discuss the part about being a woman filmmaker in Africa. Some of you may have watched in the category New Territories, the film Mère-bi (The Mother of all) by Ousmane William Mbaye about his mother Annette Mbaye d’Erneville, the first professional journalist in Senegal, who was married to a professional man and raised four children. One moment she recounts that she travelled a great deal, produced many stories and her husband demanded that she return to work as a teacher, in other words that she “return to her place.” There was a blow up, and then a divorce. There is a particularity about your work in Africa, even though you may work between France and your respective country, in that there is the expectation that the woman takes care of the household and raise the children. You are also mothers, so the question that I would like to pose: Is family life compatible with a filmmaking career?

Nadia El Fani: It is totally incompatible, that is clear. We have much more difficulty finding the time than men to do our work. It is much more difficult to leave one’s children to go to work, especially when they are small. I have only one child, a daughter who is now 25 years old. I saw the men who travelled to festivals, conferences, to whatever event. I was able to only do so only once a month. It was very difficult for me and for the men they had no problem to go here and there. My male counterparts had their wives to take care of the children. I definitely know what it is like as I have lived it… 10 ​ 11 … My mother, who is French, came to Tunisia when she retired and helped me a great deal, as well as my entourage of friends— women’s solidarity worked well in that regard, my friends took care of my daughter when needed. I think it is also difficult for the children, but at the same time there is a certain pride to have a mother who works in this field which is rather unique…

Pocas Poscoal: It is very difficult. I was an editor for a long time, and there are also long working hours. Several times I brought my children to the editing room. There are a lot of guilty feelings also. Even when there was a chance to take a vacation, there is the question of taking the children and finishing the film, when working independently.

Rama Thiaw:  It is a sacrifice. It is not a profession, between quotes, “for a woman”. I think this is a reason why there is less coalescing among women because there is not the time to go to smoke a cigar in the club and talk about the next film. [Laughter in the audience].

Angèle Diabang: Speaking of solidarity between women, as Nadia says, when I travel he has an entourage of women who takes care of him. And in fact he is able to do more than when I am there closed up in my office or in front of the computer. The house has more women when I am not there, when it is just the two of us. When I am gone, there is the grandmother, the friends, the cousins.

Lilya, 16, remembers her mother Dalila Ennadre, who died on 14 May 2020 after a long battle with cancer: "While traveling, she called me several times a day and when she came back from a film shoot, she immediately resumed her role as mom and was happy to find the rhythm of the house, in particular to return to family meals at the table together: we discussed a lot, I told her about my day, she listened to me, advised me, and afterwards, she told me about her work and we also talked about it. It is also true that she was completed engrossed in her work like many filmmakers, in her daily life, her meal breaks and her conversations with her loved ones." (Source: leseco.ma) 12 ​ 13

 

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)

Matamba Kombila : Le premier épisode de son mini série Sens Dessus Dessous, Télésourd. Sortie sur Youtube le 07 mai 2025

Matamba Kombila

Le premier épisode de son mini série

Sens Dessus Dessous, Télésourd

Sortie sur Youtube le 07 mai 2025

Anoushka, Chris Levy, Livia et Pierre, frustrés par leur difficultés à communiquer avec leurs familles, inventent une machine révolutionnaire qui leur permet de briser les barrières du langage, leur offrant des possibles jusque là inimaginables.

 

Anoushka, Chris Levy, Livia and Pierre, frustrated by their difficulty communicating with their families, invent a revolutionary machine allowing them to break down language barriers and offering them unimaginable possibilities.

 

 

The African Women in Cinema Blog Celebrates International Workers' Day : Safi Faye's "Fad,Jal"

African Women in Cinema Blog Celebrates International Workers' Day : Safi Faye's Fad,Jal

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".

Synopsis : Fad,jal (1979, 1h52, Sénégal, France)

Fad,Jal is a Serere Senegalese village. At school, children learn, in French, the grammar and history of France. Villagers practice their religion in a church, a vestige of colonialism.

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. An opportunity to discover the artisanal trades, agricultural techniques and the difficulty of exploiting the land because of the drought. Meanwhile, as a result of the recently-implemented government policy,  the Serere are confronted on a daily basis with the appropriation of their land, previously transmitted by oral agreement among the villagers.

Fad,Jal est un village sénégalais sérère. A l'école, les enfants apprennent, en français, la grammaire et l'histoire de France. Les villageois pratiquent leur religion dans une église, vestige du colonialisme.

Au pied d'un fromager, l'ancêtre et un griot racontent en wolof l'histoire du village aux enfants, sa création, ses coutumes, ses traditions. C'est l'occasion de découvrir les métiers artisanaux, les techniques agricoles et la difficulté d'exploiter les terres à cause de la sècheresse. En parallèle, le quotidien des sérères est confronté à la politique gouvernementale qui s'approprie désormais les terres, auparavant transmises oralement entre les villageois.

The African Women in Cinema Blog celebrates International Jazz Day with Betty Jazz by Armande Lo

The African Women in Cinema Blog celebrates

International Jazz Day

with Betty Jazz by Armande Lo

Synopsis

Mame Betty Diagne est passionnée de musique mais son extrême timidité l’empêche de vivre de sa passion. Sa vie va changer lorsqu’elle voit affiché à l’entrée d’un bar « urgent recherche chanteuse de jazz ».

Mame Betty Diagne is passionate about music but being extremely timid prevents her from living her passion. Her life will change when she sees an urgent search for a jazz singer posted at the entrance of a bar.

Biographie | Biography

Armande Lo, née à Dakar, a grandi à la sicap Baobab ; depuis sa naissance elle est passionnée de musique, d’art et de cinéma. Elle a eu l’opportunité de réaliser son rêve grâce à la formation cinématographique Kino Teranga. A l’issu de cette formation, 5 courts-métrages devaient être sélectionnés et tournés en 3 jours. Cette formation a ainsi donné naissance en mars 2018 à  Betty Jazz un court-métrage fiction de 9mn22s dont Armande LO est l’auteur et la réalisatrice.

Armande Lo was born in Dakar, grew up in the Baobab Sicap neighborhood and has always been passionate about music art and cinema. She had the opportunity to realize her dream by pursuing film training at Kino Teranga, after which she directed the short film Betty Jazz in 2018.

ARTE : "Le Cri défendu" avec Déborah Lukumuena qui raconte sa colère - with Deborah Lukumuena who talks about her anger

ARTE

Le Cri défendu avec Déborah Lukumuena qui raconte sa colère

Le Cri défendu with Déborah Lukumuena who talks about her anger

 
https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/090629-006-A/h24/

 

Le Cri défendu montre comment retourner la violence d'un mari violent contre lui, avec Déborah Lukumuena qui raconte sa colère

 

Sur le parking du fast-food où elle travaille, elle aperçoit un homme frapper violemment sa femme. Elle s’interpose et tient tête au mari. Avec jubilation. H24 – 24h dans la vie d'une femme : vingt-quatre courts métrages inspirés de faits réels et engagés contre les violences faites aux femmes.

 

Le Cri défendu with Déborah Lukumuena who talks about her anger, shows how to turn the violence of a violent husband against him. In the parking lot of the fast-food restaurant where she works, Déborah Lukumuena witnesses a man violently beating his wife. She intervenes, standing up to the husband. With delight. H24 - 24h in the life of a woman: twenty-four short films inspired by real events and committed against violence against women.

 

Emprise, revenge porn, féminicide, codes vestimentaires sexistes… : H24 éclaire les diverses formes d’abus dont peuvent souffrir les femmes à chaque heure du jour et de la nuit, à travers une collection de vingt-quatre courts métrages inspirés de faits réels. S'inscrivant dans une esthétique commune, chaque film entrelace brillamment littérature et cinéma. À la force des monologues en différentes langues européennes et proposées en versions sous-titrées s’ajoute l’interprétation subtile et poignante des comédiennes. Transcendant les individualités, les récits, écrits par une pléiade d’auteures talentueuses dessinent les contours d’un fléau systémique sans laisser place à la fatalité, racontant aussi l’insoumission et la riposte, narquoise ou cinglante. Poétique et tragique, un appel à la sororité et à la parole libérée.

Remembering Myriam Niang (1954-2025)

Remembering Myriam Niang (1954-2025)
Reflections by Beti Ellerson with English translation by Beti Ellerson of Laurance Gavron's Myriam Niang, actrice de cinéma : Sur les glaciers d’Alaska

May the earth rest lightly on you, dear Myriam

 

It is with great emotion that I recently learned that Myriam Niang has joined the ancestors on January 11.

Myriam Niang, who embodied the inimitable Anta in Djibril Diop Mambety’s iconic Touki Bouki, I had met in the early 1990s in Washington DC where she was enrolled in film classes at the same time assisting Ousmane Sembene on the film Guelwaar (1992) in Senegal. We had many talks together and I actually worked with her on the shooting of one of her class projects. I was especially keen to know her experiences in these classic African films of the 1970s, as she had also played the role of the rebel daughter and student Rama, in Ousmane Sembene’s film Xala (1974). However we eventually lost contact and when I began my project on African women in cinema a few years later I had often wondered what had become of her. It was not until I came across an online article (see below) written in 2005 by Laurence Gavron, the late Dakar-based filmmaker, about Myriam Niang, during her visit to Senegal. In the article, I discovered the true sense of her peripatetic path—with flashbacks of her on-screen character in Touki Bouki as she sets off for Paris on the Ancerville cruise ship (the same ship that brought Thérèse M’bissine Diop’s Diouana of La Noire de... by Ousmane Sembene, on that fateful journey to France). In her off-screen life she leaves for Paris in 1974 where she studies filmmaking, she ventures to the United States in the late 1980s, where she continues her focus in cinema—camera, scriptwriting, directing—in Washington DC and New York, and according to Laurence Gavron’s 2005 account, she moved to Alaska in the early 2000s. According to an obituary, Myriam died in New York and is buried in Senegal. (Notes from my article "On-screen Narratives, Off-screen Lives: African Women inscribing the self" in Black Camera)

 

Laurence Gavron : Reflections on Myriam Niang
 

En français ci-après

From cinema to oil. From the Sahel to the other side of the Atlantic. From the sun to the glaciers. These are not misshapen paths that Myriam Niang has followed but rather perpendicular ones: and when they meet, like two straight lines, a right angle forms.

During her long stay in the United States, this actor of cinema climbed through the snow, to the country’s last border, Alaska, which the Senegalese, in general, only know through the cathode box of the television or in geography books. The one who starred in several major Senegalese films, now works for the oil company British Petroleum. Currently on stopover in Dakar, she is preparing her return to the country. In cinema. Under another light. A new face. In new clothing.

 The slender, almost androgynous silhouette from Touki Bouki is transformed into a shorter version than on screen, muscular, shapely—a real woman, beautiful, fifty something, energetic, with a long red ponytail, lipstick and long pink pearly nails, biceps and backside alerts, the immaculate smile, the hoarse voice, always—these are the voices that change the least, despite the years—and the American accent. After years of living in English-speaking USA and Alaska, Myriam Niang punctuates all her sentences with “so…” and her French as well as her Wolof are also tinged with a slight US accent!

Perched on her high heels or shock sneakers, in sexy miniskirt or red jogging attire and low-cut tank top, energetic and smiling, Myriam Niang, the warrior, the shy young girl of Baks by Momar Thiam (1974), Xala (1975) and Guelwaar (2002) both by Ousmane Sembène, and especially the unforgettable young woman, determined to cross the Atlantic (Dakar-Paris) on Touki Bouki’s (1972) Ancerville, makes a short stopover with us, in her country of origin, Senegal.

Like Linguère Ramatou in Hyenas by Djibril Diop Mambety, she traveled; she went everywhere. She returns, her arms loaded, not with gold but with oil and projects.

And she returns, though no longer from Washington, DC where she lived for all these years, but from Anchorage, ah yes, from Alaska, as in a dream, from a city that one wonders if it actually exists—so far away, inaccessible, different, and above all... ice-cold! What did a Senegalese actress go to do in Alaska? In this city of Anchorage where, if there are African-Americans, there are only two Senegalese who live there...

Well, Myriam Niang works, she works hard. Two weeks a month. She is responsible for the management and human resources of the British Petroleum oil company. All the employees of the company live on a camping ground of sorts, not far from the oil platform, there isn’t a store, restaurant, or anything else! Though they only work two weeks a month, they only do that. Anyway, there is nothing else to do. The people who work there come from other states around the country, as well as from practically every country in the world. Myriam supervises 85 employees, manages the “house”, the hiring, etc., working from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The other two weeks of the month, Myriam Niang lives and works in Anchorage, the capital of Alaska at Wells Fargo Bank where the temperature is -60 in winter, -40 in summer! And that’s not all: on weekends, she is the manager of the lingerie section of Nordstrom the largest department store in Anchorage! There she orders the merchandise and receives a percentage of the profits.

YOU SAID WARRIOR!

Why do you want to earn so much money? On the one hand, life in Anchorage is very expensive. Even if she lives relatively well, there are other incentives. As many other actors and actresses, it was beyond having a good rapport with the filmmakers. She wanted to take control of her destiny: to choose her films, her roles, her directors. And in order to do so, all doors are open!

And even though she has returned to Senegal for the moment, “It’s not for holidays,” Myriam insists. Level-headed, determined, though stubborn, she wants to take advantage of this return (provisional for the moment) to the land of her ancestors to build a bridge between her native Djolof and Alaska, where, in her opinion, the possibilities are enormous. All this, to come back, once the dough has been collected, to cinema ,of course. Because the 7th art has always been her dream, even if she has left the scene for several years. This time, perhaps as actress, but especially as producer.

As for the projects between Senegal and Alaska, for the moment no comment! Until the ideas are concretized, she prefers not to disclose them.

Myriam Niang left Dakar in 1974, initially for France. She studied at the French Film Conservatory in Paris as well as enrolled in film classes at the Sorbonne with Jean Rouch. She also worked as editor. In 1989, she continued her adventure in the United States, in the country of Uncle Sam. In Washington DC, Myriam continued her film studies at Georgetown University. In New York, she worked as camera person, as well as directing and scriptwriting. And, from job to job, she landed on the glaciers of Alaska.

 

Laurence Gavron. Myriam Niang, actrice de cinéma : Sur les glaciers d’Alaska (3/25/05) https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/elmouritania/siQstp41ejU
 

Du cinéma au pétrole. Du Sahel à l’outre-Atlantique. Du soleil aux glaciers. Les chemins de Myriam Niang ne sont pas tordus, mais perpendiculaires : lorsqu’ils se rencontrent, c’est pour, comme deux lignes droites, former un angle droit. De son long séjour aux Etats-Unis d’Amérique, l’actrice de cinéma est montée sur la neige, à la dernière frontière des Etats-Unis. Elle est aujourd’hui en Alaska que les Sénégalais, en général, ne connaissent qu’à travers la boîte cathodique ou dans les livres de géographie. Celle qui a joué dans plusieurs grands films sénégalais travaille dans la compagnie pétrolière British Petroleum. Actuellement en escale à Dakar, elle prépare son retour au pays. Au cinéma. Sous un autre jour. Un nouveau visage. Dans de nouveaux habits.

La silhouette longiligne, presque androgyne de Touki Bouki, s’est transformée en celle, plus courte qu’à l’écran, très musclée et pleine de formes, d’une vraie femme, belle, la cinquantaine, énergique, longue queue de cheval rousse, rouge à lèvres et ongles longs nacrés rose, biceps et backside alertes, le sourire immaculé, la voix rauque, toujours (ce sont les voix qui changent le moins, malgré les années), et l’accent américain. Après des années de vie en pays anglophones (Etats-Unis, Alaska), Myriam Niang ponctue toutes ses phrases de «so… » et son français autant que son wolof sont également teintés d’un léger accent US !

Perchée sur ses hauts talons ou ses baskets de choc, en mini jupe sexy ou jogging rouge et débardeur décolleté, vive et souriante, Myriam Niang, la guerrière, la petite jeune fille timide de Baks de Momar Thiam (1974), de Xala de Sembène (1975), de Guelwaar du même Sembène (1992), et surtout la jeune femme inoubliable, déterminée à faire la traversée de l’Atlantique (Dakar-Paris) sur l’Ancerville de Touki Bouki (1972), fait une courte escale parmi nous, dans son pays d’origine, le Sénégal.

Telle Linguère Ramatou dans Hyènes (Djibril Diop Mambety), elle a voyagé ; elle est allée partout. Elle revient, les bras chargés, non pas d’or mais de pétrole et de projets.

Et elle revient, non plus de Washington où elle a vécu pendant toutes ces années, mais d’Anchorage, eh oui, d’Alaska, comme dans un rêve, d’une ville dont on se demande si elle existe vraiment, tant elle semble lointaine, inaccessible, différente, et surtout… glacée ! Qu’est donc partie faire une actrice sénégalaise en Alaska ? Dans cette ville d’Anchorage où, s’il y a des Afro-Américains, seuls deux Sénégalais y vivent…

Eh bien, Myriam Niang travaille, bosse d’arrache-pied. Deux semaines par mois. Elle s’occupe de l’administration et des ressources humaines pour la compagnie pétrolière British Petroleum. Tous les employés de cette société logent dans une sorte de campement, non loin de la plate-forme pétrolière, sans magasin ni restaurant, ni rien ! Ils ne travaillent que deux semaines par mois mais ne font que ça. De toutes manières, il n’y a rien d’autre à faire. Les gens qui y travaillent viennent des autres Etats, et de pratiquement tous les pays du monde. Elle supervise donc 85 employés, fait fonctionner la maison, embauche… Elle travaille de 5 heures du matin à 5 heures du soir.

Les deux autres semaines du mois, Myriam Niang vit et travaille à Anchorage, la capitale de l’Alaska (- 60 en hiver, -40 en été !), à la Wells Fargo Bank. Et ce n’est pas tout : le week-end, elle s’occupe du rayon lingerie dans le plus grand magasin d’Anchorage, le Nordstrom ! Elle commande la marchandise et touche un pourcentage sur les bénéfices.

VOUS AVEZ DIT GUERRIERE !

Pourquoi vouloir gagner tant d’argent ? D’une part, la vie à Anchorage est très chère. Même si elle est bien logée et vit correctement, il y a autre chose. Comme beaucoup d’acteurs et d’actrices, être plus ou moins bien traitée des cinéastes ne lui suffisait plus. Elle a voulu prendre en main sa destinée : choisir ses films, ses rôles, ses metteurs en scène. Et pour ça, tous les moyens sont bons !

Et si elle est revenue actuellement au Sénégal, Myriam insiste : «Ce n’est pas pour des vacances.» La tête bien ancrée sur ses épaules, décidée, têtue, elle veut profiter de ce retour (provisoire pour l’instant) au pays de ses ancêtres pour jeter une passerelle entre son Djolof natal et l’Alaska où les possibilités sont énormes, d’après elle. Tout cela, pour revenir, une fois les pépètes récoltées, au cinéma bien sûr. Car le 7è art la fait toujours rêver, même si elle a déserté les plateaux depuis plusieurs années. Cette fois, actrice peut-être, mais avant tout productrice.
 
Quant aux projets entre le Sénégal et l’Alaska, pour le moment bouche cousue ! Tant que les idées ne sont pas concrétisées, elle préfère ne pas les divulguer.

Myriam Niang a quitté Dakar en 1974, pour la France d’abord. Elle y a entrepris des études au Conservatoire de film de France et pris des cours de cinéma à la Sorbonne avec Jean Rouch. Elle devient même monteuse. Avant de continuer son aventure, en 89, aux Etats-Unis d’Amérique. Au pays de l’Oncle Sam, Myriam poursuit ses études de cinéma à l’Université George Town de Washington. A New York, elle fait la caméra, la mise en scène et l’écriture de cinéma. Et, de boulot en boulot, elle atterrit sur les glaciers d’Alaska.
 

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.

Blog: africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com

Website: africanwomenincinema.org

African Women in Cinema Dossier

FESPACO 2025 : Palmarès | Awards - Les lauréates | Women winners

FESPACO 2025 : Palmarès | Awards

Les lauréates | Women winners

Fiction Long Metrage - Etalon de Bronze Yennenga
On Becoming A Guinea Fowl de Rungano Nyoni

Documentaire Long Metrage - Etalon d’or de Yennenga
'L'homme -Vertige de Malaury Eloi Paisley

Prix Wumba Film Postproduction pour To Daniel de Marwa El Sharkawy

Shorts Fiction - Mention Speciale - Langue Maternelle de  Mariame N'diaye

Shorts Documentaire - Poulain d’or du Film Documentaire
Khamsinette de Assia Khemici (Algérie)

Shorts Documentaire - Poulain d’Argent du Film Documentaire
The Medallion de Ruth Hunduma

Prix President Thomas Sankara Pour La Promotion des Valeurs du Panafricanisme - Premier Prix du President Thomas Sankara Pour La Promotion des Valeurs du Panafricanisme - Our Land, Our Freedom de Meena Nanji, Zippy Kimundu

Prix President Thomas Sankara Pour La Promotion des Valeurs du Panafricanisme - Premier Prix du President Thomas Sankara Pour La Promotion des Valeurs du Panafricanisme - Mother City de Miki Redelinghuys

Section Perspectives - Prix Oumarou Ganda de la Meilleure Premiere ou Deuxieme Œuvre de Film de Fiction Long Métrage - Who Do I Belong To de Meryam Joobeur

Section Perspectives - Mention Speciale - Timpi Tampa - Emprunte de Adama Bineta Sow

Augusta Palenfo a reçu le prix spécial des droits humains d'une valeur de 2 millions de FCFA pour son film Waongo

Prix Félix Houphouët Boigny du Conseil de l’Entente, 10 millions de francs CFA, décerné à « Une si longue nuit » de Delphine Yerbanga du Burkina

Fatoumata Bathily remporte le Prix du Jury Animation pour son film "Les aventures de Kady et Djudju"

Image : fespaco.bf - publications - palmarès

Commemorating Women's History Month 2025

In honor of Women’s History Month

celebrated during the month of March (in the US)

 

Some relevant links from the African Women in Cinema Blog for Women History Month

Sisters of the Screen, twenty years later--and beyond
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2020/12/sisters-of-screen-twenty-years-later.html

Researches in African Women in Cinema Studies: Beginnings - a dossier by Beti Ellerson
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2025/01/researches-in-african-women-in-cinema-studies-beginnings.html

Building a Historiography of African Women in Cinema
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2012/12/building-historiography-of-african.html

African Women in Cinema Dossier by Beti Ellerson: a regular feature of Black Camera, An International Film Journal
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2019/01/african-women-in-cinema-dossier-by-beti.html

African Women's filmmaking and film activism as Womanist Work
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2022/06/african-womens-filmmaking-womanist-work.html

FESPACO 2025 : Women at the 29th edition / Les femmes à la 29ème édition

 

FESPACO 2025 : Women at the 29th edition / Les femmes à la 29ème édition

 

Selection Officielle / Official Selection - Competition

Competition Fiction Long Metrage / Feature Length
Hanami - Denise Fernandes - Cap Vert - 96 Min
Les Invertueuses - Chloé Aïcha Boro - Burkina Faso - 96 min
On Becoming A Guinea Fowl - Rungano Nyoni - Zambia - 99 min
Sanko / Le Rêve De Dieu - Mariam Kamissok - Mali - 117 min
The Bride / La Mariée - Myriam Birara - Rwanda - 73 min

Competition Documentaire Long Metrage / Feature Documentary
Amakki - Celia Boussebaa - Algérie - 104 min
Mambar Pierette - Rosine Mbakam - Cameroun - 93 min
The Mother Of All Lies / La Mère De Tous Les Mensonges - Asmae El Moudir - Maroc - 96 min

Competition FESPACO Shorts
Beutset - Fiction - Alicia Mendy - Senegal - 30 min
Bord à Bord - Fiction - Sahar El Echi - Tunisie - 16 min
Deixa / Laisse-le - Fiction - Mariana Jaspe - Brésil - 15 min
Khamsinette - Documentaire - Assia Khemici - Algérie - 25 min
L'audition - Fiction - Kayaba Anaïs Irma Kere - Burkina Faso - 13 min
Langue Maternelle - Fiction - Mariame N'diaye - Sénégal - 24 min
Sita Bella, La Premiere - Documentaire - Eugenie Metala - Cameroun - 31 min
Sous le voile de nos silences - Fiction - Yasmine Ila Ido - Burkina Faso - 16 min
The Medallion - Documentaire - Ruth Hunduma - Ethiopie - 19 min
Under The Palm Tree / Sous le ronier - Fiction - Orokiatou Baro - Burkina Faso - 19 min
Zanatany - Fiction - Hachimiya Ahamada - Comores - 27 min

Competition Burkina Films (Shorts et Long Métrage Fictions et Documentaires)
L'inconditionnel - Documentaire - Isabelle Christiane Kouraogo - 15 Min
Verite Des Coeurs - Fiction - Delphine Yerbanga - 12 min
Ça Suffit ! - Fiction - Alimata Ouedraogo - 87 min
Waongo / Bienvenue - Fiction - Augusta Palenfo - 90 min

Competition Semaine de la Critique
Héritage : L'histoire décolonisée de l'Afrique du Sud - Documentaire - Tara Moore - South Africa - 109 Min
Mikoko - Fiction - Angela Aquereburu Rabatel - Togo - 114 Min
Quem É Essa Mulher? / Qui Est-Elle? - Documentaire - Mariana Jaspe - Brésil - 70 Min

Compétition Fespaco Series
Ankara, l'Héritage des Nanas Benz - Sitou Ayite - Togo - 26 min X 3
Bienvenue à Kikidéni - Aminata Glez Diallo - Burkina Faso - 26 min X 3
Le Cavaleur et Les Siffleurs - Nadine Otsobogo - Gabon - 26 min X 3
Manmzel New York - Mariette Monpierre - Guadeloupe - 26 min X 3
Or Blanc - Johanna Boyer-Dilolo - Côte d’Ivoire - 52 min X 2

Competition Animations
Ban'a Mayi - Maud-Salomé Ekila Bofunda - Rd Congo - 8 Min
Hadu - Damilola Solesi - Nigéria - 7 Min
Kondekiè - Kadidiatou Konaké - Mali - 7 Min
Les Aventures de Kady et Djudju (L'empire du Ghana) - Fatoumata Bathily - Sénégal - 12 Min

Compétition Films des Ecoles de Cinéma
Ton Mari C’est Ton Dieu N’kony Sylla Sabou Ciné Talents / Guinée 18 min
19 Victime Silencieuse Kate Djiwan Isma / Benin 13 min

Competition Perspectives
1964: Simityè Kamoken / 1964: Le Cimetière des Kamoken- Rachèle Magloire - Haiti - Documentaire - 97 min
Les Miennes - Samira El Mouzghibat - Morocco - Fiction - 96 min
Pirinha - Natasha Craveiro - Cap-Vert - Documentary - 60 min
Timpi Tampa / Empreinte - Adama Bineta Sow - Senegal - Fiction
Une si long lettre - Angele Diabang - Senegal - Fiction - 105 min
Une si long nuit - Delphine Yerbanga - Burkina Faso - Fiction - 85 min
Who Do I Belong To? -  Meryam Joobeur - Tunisia - Fiction - 120 min

Cinéastes non alignées : Parlez-vous cinéma ? Avec Pascale Obolo & Rahma Benhamou El Madani

Le collective Cinéastes non alignées
Parlez-vous Cinema ?

avec Pascale Obolo & Rahma Benhamou El Madani

Pascale Obolo & Rahma Benhamou El Madani évoquent le collectif des cinéastes non-alignées lors du 44ème FIFAM Festival International du Film d'Amiens

The collective is an association whose mission is to support diversity, parity and better representation and a greater percentage of women's involvement in the international film industry.

 

Remembering Safi Faye (1943-2023) - Safi Faye’s cinematic practice as womanist work

Remembering Safi Faye (1943-2023)
Safi Faye’s cinematic practice as womanist work*

The womanist work in Safi Faye’s cinematic practice empowers, supports and promotes women in tandem with upholding the fight for racial, ethnic, social, political, and economic justice in one’s society and throughout the world.

Je ne suis pas du tout féministe. Je suis féminisante. Je defends le cas des femmes… I am not at all feminist. I am womanistic, I defend the condition of women…

Fad signifies ‘arrive’ and Jal means ‘work,’ ‘work’ because when you arrive at this farming village called Fad’jal, you must work. When you work, you’re happy, and if you don’t work, people will mock you.

I interpret Safi Faye’s “feminisant”—from the French word “femme”, feminist, female”—as doing womanist work. Womanist, itself an expression coined by afro-descendant women in order to reconceptualize western feminism as defined by white women, which often does not reflect the realities of women of color.

Safi Faye’s words invoke the often vexed relationship that Afro-descendant women and women of the
South have with Western feminism, fraught with a contentious past, spurned by those who reject its historical practices of exclusion, ethnocentrism and elitism by white women.

Hence by rejecting the feminist label but affirming “womanistic” as the practice of defending the cause of women, Safi Faye is exercising her agency by naming her own experience rather than accepting one based on another reality.

As a further matter, describing the actions of doing “womanist work” renegotiates the terms of this feminism—outlining the tenets of a conceptual framework toward an intersectional, interdisciplinary, and transnational methodology. In so doing, I use the second citation by Safi Faye to place emphasis on the praxis-based approach to her cinematic practice, as she states:

I investigate, inquire, and then I write, and I try to remain faithful to the rural world that I come from, as well as to Africa and the villagers. I admire people who live off the land. In Serer country, the coastal people to which I belong . . . are renowned for the energy they put into their work. The people live within a matriarchal society in which women have more importance than men. Men and women are free thanks to the fruits of their labor. The rural world, the theme that I chose and which corresponds to my cinematic vision, is timeless. It concerns all rural farmers, whether they are Japanese, Senegalese or Singaporean, since we’ve all been rural farmers at one time; the entire world comes from the countryside. I glorify the hard work rural farmers do to achieve food self-sufficiency.

Therefore, Safi Faye’s womanistic act of defending the cause of women is concomitant with her desire to contribute to the knowledge production of Africa and the safeguarding of its culture: "I do what I can for my Africa, to tell how beautiful Africa is."

*Drawn from : "Exploring African Women’s Cinematic Practice as Womanist Work"

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2023/03/exploring-african-womens-cinematic-practice-womanist-work.html 

 

Also see: 

Safi Faye : La Grande Référence - 1943-2023 - A Tribute, "I dared to make a film!"

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2023/02/safi-faye-1943-2023-tribute.html

FESPACO 2025 : Cinémas d'Afrique et Identités Culturelles - African Cinema and Cultural Identities

FESPACO - Festival Panafricain du Cinéma et de la Télévision de Ouagadougou
22 Fev - 01 Mar 2025
Cinémas d'Afrique et Identités Culturelles
African Cinema and Cultural Identities

 

https://fespaco.bf/

Researches in African Women in Cinema Studies: Discussion of the Literature - a dossier by Beti Ellerson

Researches in African Women in Cinema Studies - Discussion of the Literature - a dossier by Beti Ellerson

See also:

Researches in African Women in Cinema Studies: Beginnings - a dossier by Beti Ellerson

 

In the spirit of the Black Women’s Studies Movement and the objectives of the Association of African Women for Research and Development (AAWORD/AFARD) this discussion privileges African and Afrodescendant voices and research sources, hence the purpose is to draw especially from the rich knowledge of the continent and the African diaspora.

While the emergence of African Women in Cinema Studies dates to 2000, literature on or by African women and the moving image may be traced to at least the 1960s. The Italian-language book Cinema e Africa nera, one of the first studies about African cinema by an African, published in Italy in 1968, was based on the academic research of Nigerian Joy Nwosu, who studied at Pro Deo University in Rome. It is worth noting her words of wisdom when undertaking research: “That is important, if you are doing research on [the topic of African cinema], you must look at my work, and if you have not then that means that you have not done your research properly…Not because of the joy of reading it, but to know what has been there, that it has been done and how it all started…that is why it is very relevant for today.”

The Senegal-based French-language women’s magazine Awa, la revue de la femme noire (1964–1973) featured photographs and short profiles on African actresses of the fledgling African cinemas. The emergence of Awa, initially launched by veteran journalist, feminist, cultural activist Annette Mbaye d’Erneville in 1957 under the name Femmes de Soleil is an example of the early engagement of African women at the intersection of gender and culture.  Moreover, Annette Mbaye d’Erneville was the director of RECIDAK, Rencontres cinématographiques de Dakar for many years. An annual film festival that she initiated in 1990 and with which she continues to have close ties. The 1996 edition of RECIDAK, Femmes et Cinéma (Women and Cinema) paid homage to African women. She was also a founding member of the Association Sénégalaise des Critiques de Cinéma (ASSECCI) created by filmmaker and critic Paulin Soumanou Vieyra and journalist Djib Diedhiou. Also one of the founders of the women’s movement in Senegal, Annette Mbaye d’Erneville’s pioneering feminist voice reverberates within diverse cultural milieux, notable cinema, where she has been a seminal figure in the development of the Senegalese public as cultural readers.

Amina Magazine created in 1972 continued this tradition of profiles and interviews of women stakeholders in the cinema industry; journalist Assiatou Bah Diallo, who was the longtime editor-in-chief, made an important contribution, ensuring the visibility of African women of the moving image in its pages. While presented in a journalistic format, these remain important sources regarding contemporaneous experiences, relevant events, and information and newly-released films.

Ousmane Sembene was one of the first African filmmakers to put women at the forefront of his films, depicting them as the complex, multi-layered women they are in reality. Both his  literary and cinematic oeuvres have from the beginning held an important place in discourse on representations of African women in cinema and literature. The 1969 article “Les femmes dans l’oeuvre littéraire d’Ousmane Sembene” by Jarmila Ortova is one of the first works analyzing the representation of women in his literary works. Similarly, Carrie D. Moore’s 1972 article “The Role of Women in the Works of Sembene Ousmane” was one of the first English-language works.

The 1974 issue of Women and Film, which dedicated an extensive series to Sarah Maldoror, was one of the first comprehensive English-language analyses of the early works of Maldoror, with her reflections and an interview. The second comprehensive English-language study of her work from 1970 to 1986 by Françoise Pfaff is included in her book Twenty-Five Black African Filmmakers, published in 1988. A similar comprehensive study of Safi Faye and her work from 1972–1984 is also included in Françoise Pfaff’s book. In addition, I have expanded the Safi Faye literature to include “Through an African Woman’s Eyes: Safi Faye’s Cinema”, a critical analysis, published in 2004, and after her passing a tribute entitled “I dared to make a film, a tribute to the life and work of Safi Faye,” published in 2023.

Now that Sarah Maldoror (1929-2020) and Safi Faye (1943-2023) have joined the ancestors, there is a growing interest in their legacy, with written and transmedial tributes. The African Women in Cinema Blog has attempted to collect the multiple references for both Sarah Maldoror and Safi Faye.

The arrival of the pioneering African woman filmmaker with a corpus of work to study, marked the advent of African women in cinema literature, mostly in French and English. As the interest in African women in cinema studies expands internationally, literature in German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish are finding a compelling readership. One of the first analyses of women in African cinema, in front of and behind the camera under the title “La femme dans le cinéma africain” was authored in 1977 by African cinema historian and filmmaker Paulin Soumanou Vieyra. Most of the other works during this period add to the previous corpus of work on Safi Faye and the representation of women in the films of Sembene.

The journal Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, which analyses visual media at the intersection of race, gender, and class, featured several articles on women and African cinema beginning in the 1980s. In the February 1984 issue, Claudia Springer’s article “Black Women Filmmakers” highlighted three African women, Nigerians Ruby Bell-Gam and Ijeoma Iloputaife as well as Anne Ngu from Cameroon. It is one of the first analyses of African women film practitioners studying and working in the United States.

The 1980s also witnessed the emergence of graduate studies on African women in cinema, generally focusing on representations in film. One may note the presence of African women undertaking academic studies on African women in cinema; for example, Rosette Léonie Yangba-Zowe’s 1987 research, “Divers aspects d  marriage and the role des femmes dans l’oeuvre cinématographique d’Oumarou Ganda,” on the diverse aspects of marriage and the role of women in the films of Oumarou Ganda, a pioneering filmmaker of Niger. The trend continues with Chido Matewa’s master’s dissertation, “The Role of the Media in the Subordination of Women in Africa,” and the section “Case Study of Africa Women Filmmakers Trust,” in her doctoral dissertation, “Media and the Empowerment of Communities for Social Change”; Wanjiku Beatrice Mukora’s master’s dissertation, “Disrupting Binary Divisions: Representation of Identity in Saikati and Battle of the Sacred Tree”; Dominica Dipio’s doctoral dissertation published as the book Gender Terrains in African Cinema; Joyce Osei Owusu’s master’s and doctoral dissertations, “Women and the Screen: A Study of Shirley Frimpong-Manso’s Life and Living It and Scorned” and “Ghanaian Women and Film: An Examination of Female Representation and Audience Reception,” and Carolyn Khamete Mango’s dissertation thesis, “The presence of women in the Kenyan film industry: applying postcolonial African feminist theory.”

From 1990 to 1998, Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screens, the pan-African review published by the pan-African Federation of African Cineastes, provided a wealth of cinema-related information such as profiles, interviews, newly released films, films in production, in-focus presentations, analyses, and relevant announcements, with women prominently featured in the pages and on the covers. Though it is no longer active, it is an important archive for research and study. Françoise Pfaff’s 1991 article “Eroticism and Sub-Saharan African Films,” one of the first studies on sexuality and the body in African films, is a forerunner to the abundance of works on the theme appearing in the 1990s and 2000s, for instance, Gender and Sexuality in African Literature and Film edited by Ada Uzoamaka Azodo and Maureen Ngozi Eke in 2007; the doctoral dissertation of Ousmane Ouedraogo, “Gender and Sexuality in West African Francophone Cinema” in 2008; and the doctoral dissertation of Naminata Diabate, “Genital Power: Female Sexuality in West African Literature and Film,” in 2011.

Chinyere Stella Okunna’s 1996 study “Portrayal of Women in Nigerian Home Video Films: Empowerment or Subjugation?” is a precursor to the plethora of subsequent research on representations of women that proliferated in the 2000s, especially on what would be known as “Nollywood.” Agatha Ukata’s 2010 doctoral dissertation “The Image(s) of Women in Nigerian (Nollywood) Videos” is an example of the heightened attention paid to this phenomenon and the representations of women in the images. And to further emphasize, they are both African women researching about African women.

As more films by and about women became accessible in the 1990s, there was a growing interest in studying, teaching, and discussing women-directed films and films in general with realistic and empowering women characters—in the classroom as well as in cultural venues and film festivals. The emergence of an “African women in cinema movement” gave impetus to a body of work in the form of manifestos, declarations, proceedings, and repertories. Najwa Tlili’s Femmes d’Images de l’Afrique Francophone, published in 1994, was a direct result of one of the objectives of the colloquium “Images de femmes,” the African women’s meeting held at the Vues d’Afrique festival in Montreal in 1989, to create an index bringing together the biography and filmography of francophone African women. The directory also includes short dialogues of varying lengths, of forty women in response to the question “why do you make films?” as well as an interview with artist/filmmaker/activist Werewere Liking. The historic meeting at FESPACO (Pan-African Festival of Film and Television of Ouagadougou) in 1991, which in many ways became the genesis of a continent-wide “women of the image” movement, set out its objectives through a pointed declaration, outlining the exasperations, hopes, frustrations, and interest of the participants, and by inference, African women professionals of the image in general. Similar manifestos were presented at the meeting of the African Women Filmmakers Conference in 2010 in Johannesburg, South Africa and in 2013 at the African Women Film Forum in Accra, Ghana. Hence, these statements serve as a record of the intentions, ideas, and experiences of the period and also as a means to assess the decision-making process at a certain time and the manner in which issues were later resolved.

My 1996–1997 postdoctoral work on African women in the visual media culminated in seminal works on African women in cinema studies, including the book Sisters of the Screen: Women of Africa on Film, Video and Television, released in 2000; and the companion film, Sisters of the Screen: African Women in the Cinema, in 2002. The book introduces the concept of “African women cinema studies,” (which has been renamed as ‘African Women in Cinema Studies’) presenting a methodology, historiography, theoretical framework, filmography, and bibliography. And also of importance, there is a collection of interviews of pioneering women and those who had recently entered the profession. This is significant in that those voices informed the methodology and provide the framework for future research as primary sources: as women’s stories, expressing their needs, interests, and problems. The film, based on excerpts of the filmed interviews transcribed for the book, has been a valuable source in women’s studies, African studies, and international studies. The Internet-based Centre for the Study and Research of African Women in Cinema and the African Women in Cinema Blog are extensions of this project, with the continuation of interviews, analyses of films, and the dissemination of related content. The plethora of scholarly works—including articles, books, conferences, forums, and colloquia that have bourgeoned in the new millennium—ensure the development of the sub-field of African women in cinema studies and its continued growth.

With the emergence of the Internet, digital journalism and transmedial environments have provided an important space for the visibility of African women journalists and content creators. Throughout the continent this cohort of women are actively engaged in film journalism and storytelling in association with digital portals such as Africine.org, the African press in general, in affiliation with Western news outlets or as creators of their own media production enterprise. Angela Aquereburu, with her partner, founded Yobo Studios, whose objective is to provide original and exportable programs and bring a different perspective regarding Africa. Hortense Assaga created the magazine Cité Black Paris, hosts several cultural programs and regularly reports on cultural events for Africa 24 and Canal+ Afrique. Togolese film critic Sitou Ayité wears multiple hats as producer, scriptwriter and director. Amina Barakat from Morocco, navigates the local film culture scene as well as throughout the continent. Franco-Burkinabé Claire Diao traverses an array of transmedia networks: podcasts, audio-visual programming, itinerant film curation, and diverse print media. Cameroonian journalist Stéphanie Dongmo, blogger, president of the Cameroon chapter of CNA, Cinema Numerique Ambulant, the extensive network of mobile cinema in Africa and Europe, is also a novelist. Falila Gbadamassi, journalist, film critic and social media editor, informs and wants to be informed about Africa in particular. From Nollywood to Bollywood via Hollywood, she is both a film enthusiast and critic. She writes for Africiné Magazine (Dakar), among other media. France-based independent journalist Amanda Kabuiku collaborates with several publications. Belgo-Congolese Djia Mambu keeps a visible presence at the important network of African film festivals, Cannes and beyond. Similarly, Belgium-based filmmaker and journalist Wendy Bashi is a host of the programme Reflets Sud on TV5 Monde. Cameroonian journalist and film critic Pélagie Ng'onana is an editor at the Dakar-based Africiné Magazine and collaborates with the Yaoundé-based cultural revue Mosaïques. Originally working as journalist, Nadège Batou wanted to expand her audience beyond the community-based media, hence, acquiring the necessary training as director and producer. She is founder and director of the Festival des 7 Quartiers in Brazzaville. Similarly journalist-filmmaker Annette Kouamba Matondo of Congo-Brazzaville, is also an avid blogger, using social media to showcase local social activities and women’s initiatives. Domoina Ratsara from Madagascar is president of the Association des Critiques Cinématographiques de Madagascar (ACCM) which she co-founded in December 2018. Mame Woury Thioubou, journalist and filmmaker, is just as much at ease with the pen as with a camera. Tools that allow her to observe and describe her world, to share feelings. An exercise that has earned her honors worldwide. Senegalese Fatou Kiné Sene is general secretary of the Senegalese Film Critics Association. The goal of Senegalese Fatou Warkha, creator of the online television channel Warkha TV is to change attitudes and laws, giving a face and voice to everyone who has been forgotten by the authorities.

The boundaries between research, filmmaking/storytelling, criticism, activism, networking are blurred, intermingled within transmedial environments where African women makers themselves control the production, dissemination and validation of knowledge.

Some parts of the text are drawn from my article, "African Women in Film, the Moving Image, and Screen Culture." Oxford Research Encyclopedias, African History, 2019, and the Blog article, "African Women Journalists: Critical Engagements in African Cinemas", 2021.

Women in Films Awards Kenya

Women in Films Awards Kenya

Now in its 6th year the aim of Women in Films Awards Kenya is to celebrate the drive; spirit and diversity of the woman filmmaker

Women Films Awards director Dr. Susan Gitimu describes its purpose: “There’s a need for a festival that affords women of any background the chance to be showcased in a truly empowering light.”

Description from website: https://beyondthefilm.org/wifawardskenya/
“Beyond the Film” is an organization dedicated to recognizing and celebrating the outstanding contributions of women in the film industry. Through our annual Women in Film Awards, we strive to illuminate the remarkable talent, creativity, and resilience of women who have made significant strides in various aspects of filmmaking.

Awards Objectives : https://beyondthefilm.org/wifawardskenya/
1. To celebrate women perspectives through film
2. To encourage women filmmakers in Kenya present the world as they experience it through filming the world.
3. To empower women in Kenya to embrace filmmaking.
4. To create a market linkage for women filmmakers in Kenya to the larger market for film i.e. distributors (online, mobile, TV, and local retail market) and consumers/viewers.

Africain de film & recherche féministes : Appel à candidature / Call for applications sur le thème: Féminisme, Démocratie et Écologie

 

Gëstu Naataal i Jigeen

African Feminist Film Festival

Festival Africain de film & recherche féministes

COMMUNIQUÉ :

Appel à candidature :/ call for applications sur le thème: Féminisme, Démocratie et Écologie

Notre appel à candidatures pour notre résidence d’écriture et de recherche-action Intersections: Selebeyoon 2025 sur #Féminisme , Démocratie et l’Ecologie est ouvert jusqu’au 28 février 2024! Soumettez votre candidature maintenant en envoyant votre dossier à residency@njegemaar.com & cinefemfest@cinefemfest.com

Our call for applications for our Intersections: Selebeyoon action-research and creative writing residency on #Feminism , #Democracy and #Ecology is open until 28 février 2024! Do submit application materials to residency@njegemaar.com & cinefemfest@cinefemfest.com

The African Women in Cinema Blog celebrates Black History Month

 

 

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Highlights from 2024 and 2023

Closeup: The Africas/Diasporas of Women in the Evolution of a TransAfrican Film Practice and Critical Inquiry curated by Beti Ellerson - Black Camera: An International Film Journal 15. 2 (Spring 2024)
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2024/06/closeup-africas-diasporas-of-women-black-camera.html

Sarah Maldoror Lives (1929-2020) and Beyond
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2024/04/sarah-maldoror-lives-1929-2020-and-beyond.html

“I dared to make a film”: A Tribute to the Life and Work of Safi Faye by Beti Ellerson - Black Camera: An International Film Journal 15.1 (Fall 2023) - African Women in Cinema Dossier
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2023/12/safi-faye-i-dared-to-make-a-film-tribute-to-her-life-and-work.html

 Remembering Thérèse Sita-Bella : Tam-Tam à Paris -  Il y a 60 ans | Sixty years ago
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2023/11/sita-bella-tam-tam-paris-il-y-60-ans-sixty-years.html