Journal of African Cinemas : Celebrating 40 years of films made by women directors in francophone Africa

Journal of African Cinemas : Celebrating 40 years of films made by women directors in francophone Africa 

Volume 4 Issue 2
Cover Date
October 2012

CONTENTS

Editorial

Celebrating 40 years of films made by women directors in francophone Africa

BRIGITTE ROLLET

Articles

Aesthetic and narrative strategies in the films of selected African women directors

SHEILA PETTY 

The emergence of women’s film-making in francophone sub-Saharan Africa: From pioneering figures to contemporary directors

LIZELLE BISSCHOFF

A transnational feminist rereading of post-Third Cinema theory: The case of Maghreb documentary

STEFANIE VAN DE PEER

Women in Film in Cameroon: Thérèse Sita-Bella, Florence Ayisi, Oswalde Lewat and Josephine Ndagnou

OLIVIER JEAN TCHOUAFFÉ - SEE COMMENTS BELOW

Towards an African women in cinema studies

BETI ELLERSON

Book review

Screens and Veils: Maghrebi Women's Cinema, Florence Martin (2011)

STEFANIE VAN DE PEER 

Reports

Festival International de Cinéma Vues d’Afrique

SHEILA PETTY 

A gender perspective on the 23rd edition of the JCC

PATRICIA CAILLÉ

Also see: Report on the Colloquium-Meeting "Francophone African Women Filmmakers: 40 years of cinema (1972-2012)" - Paris, 23-24 November 2012  

COMMENTS BY BETI ELLERSON ON

Women in Film in Cameroon: Thérèse Sita-Bella, Florence Ayisi, Oswalde Lewat and Josephine Ndagnou

by Olivier Jean Tchouaffé 

In the article “Women in Film in Cameroon” by Olivier Jean Tchouaffé, published in Journal of African Cinemas in 2012, he gives an overview of Thérèse Sita-Bella and her pioneering work as cineaste, lauding the trailblazing path that she has left for those who follow. However, in his book Passion of the Reel: Cinematic versus Modernist Political Fictions in Cameroon, (Intellect Books) published three years later in 2015, curiously, she is not cited among the pioneers of Cameroonian cinema and is basically ignored, with scant attention paid to her and her work under the title "Cameroonian Women in Film: Thérèse Sita-Bella, Florence Ayisi, Oswalde Lewat and Josephine Ndagnou. This gaping omission is puzzling, especially after the prominent place that she is accorded in “Women in Film in Cameroon”. It is as if there are two faces to Olivier Jean Tchouaffé’s approach in the discussion of women. In the issue devoted to African women filmmakers, she is given accolades for her role as pioneer, while in a broader discussion of Cameroonian cinema as a whole she is dismissed and snubbed—giving place to only the men of Cameroonian cinema history. Was this article about women filmmakers in the Journal of African Cinemas a mere stepping stone for Olivier Jean Tchouaffé to more “serious” matters about men?

International Colloquium "Francophone African Women Filmmakers: 40 Years of Cinema (1972-2012)"

International Colloquium "Francophone African Women Filmmakers: 40 Years of Cinema (1972-2012)": The objective of this event, sponsored by PATRIMA, is to celebrate the forty years of African filmmaking by women. In 1972 two films were released, the feature film Sambizanga was directed by Angolan Sarah Maldoror (Guadeloupean by birth, Angolan by adoption) and the short film La Passante by Safi Faye of Senegal.

Practical Information:

Date:         From Friday 23 to Saturday 24 November 2012

Location:   Musée du Quai Branly and Bibliothèque nationale de France (Paris)

Contact: brigitte.rollet@uvsq.fr

Presentation:

Programme

Friday 23 November 2012, morning - Musée du Quai Branly, cinema hall

9h15-9h30: Welcoming of participants

9h30-9h45: Introduction

9h45-10h45: Plenary : Beti Ellerson (Centre for the Study and Research of African Women in Cinema) "40 Years of Cinema by Women in Africa" (lead by Jackie Buet, FIFF)

10h45-11h15: Break

11h15-12h30: Panel 1 : Questions of Identities (lead by Brigitte Rollet, CHCSC-UVSQ)

Daniela Ricci (Université de Lyon): "Women Filming Women: Two Films of the West African Diaspora". 

Lizelle Bischoff (University of Edinburgh): "Images of Women in the Context of Globalisation: Identity and the Transcultural Experiences of African Women Filmmakers"

12h30-13h00: Audience discussion

13h00-14h30: Lunch

Friday 23 November 2012, afternoon - Musée du quai Branly, cinema hall

14h30-15h45 : Women's Fictions and Documentaires: Creations, Politics and Aesthetics (lead by Valérie Berty, NYU Paris)

Odile Cazenave (University of Boston): "Behind/In Front of the Camera: Aut(eu)rité in the Films of Khady Sylla"

Sheila Petty (University of Regina, Canada): 'Respect my Différence!':Laïcité, Inch'Allah! (Secularism, Inch'Allah!) and Nadia El Fani's Cinema of Debate

15h45-16h15 : Audience discussion

16h15-16h45 : Break

16h45-18h00:  Legacies and Ruptures of Present Independences (lead by Carrie Tarr, Kingston)

Patricia Caillé (Université de Strasbourg) "Women Filmmakers Film History: Women's Place and the Challenges in Claiming Liberties"

Stefanie van de Peer (St Andrews University, UK) : Experimental Films by Maghrebine Women Cineastes in the XXI Century"

18h-18h30 : Audience discussion

18h30-19h : Conclusions/synthesis

Saturday 24 November 2012, morning - Bibliothèque Nationale de France, site François Mitterrand, small auditorium

9h30-10h: Welcoming of participants

10h-10h15: Introduction

10h15-11h00: How to Make a Film in Africa When One is a Woman? Masterclass by Sarah Maldoror lead by Brigitte Rollet

11h00-11h15: Audience discussion

11h15-11h30: Break

11h30-12h30: Roundtable "Stories, Characters, Genres : What History?" with Fanta Regina Nacro, Isabelle Boni-Claverie and Farida Benlyazid, lead by Catherine Ruelle

12h30-13h00: Audience discussion

13h00-14h30: Lunch

Saturday 24 November 2012, afternoon - Bibliothèque Nationale de France, site François Mitterrand, small auditorium

14h30-15h30 : Roundtable "Documentaires : What Perspective on the World?" with Oswalde Lewat, Anne-Laure Folly and Nadia El Fani (pending confirmation), lead by Jean-Marie Barbe

15h30-16h00 : Audience discussion

16h00-16h15 : Break

16h15-17h15 : Roundtable "Immigrations, Exiles and African Diasporas in Europe: Plural Identities?" with Rahmatou Keïta, Fatima Sissani and Monique Mbeka Phoba, lead by Elisabeth Lequêret

17h15-17h45 : Audience discussion

17h45- 18h45 : Cocktail

18h45: Screening of Sambizanga after discussion with filmmaker

READ REPORT ON COLLOQUIUM: http://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2012/12/report-on-colloquium-meeting.html