AFRICAN WOMEN IN CINEMA BLOG: Horria Saihi

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.

Showing posts with label Horria Saihi. Show all posts

10 June 2022

Horria Saihi: Une femme algérienne. Au fil de la résistance, j'écris ton nom | An Algerian woman, throughout the resistance, I write my name

Horria Saihi: Une femme algérienne. Au fil de la résistance, j'écris ton nom | An Algerian woman, throughout the resistance, I write my name

Paru le 19 mai 2022

English translation soon

Un livre qui est à la fois un parcours de vie, un témoignage et un appel à la résistance, signé par une opposante de la première heure à toutes les formes d'oppression qui s'opposent à la démocratie en Algérie. « Femme, journaliste, réalisatrice et militante, actrice et témoin privilégiée, je choisis désormais d’écrire et d’apporter ma contribution à une histoire vivante en puisant dans nos luttes, notre résistance », écrit Horria Saïhi. « Je dis et décris l’arbitraire du pouvoir avec ses lots d’enlèvements, de séquestrations, de tortures, d’assignations à résidence, d’emprisonnements, de révoltes d’étudiants, de lycéens ou de paysans, la censure et l’interdit, la contestation, la solidarité, la montée de l’islamisme politique, la riposte pacifique ou armée, l’engagement des femmes. J’évoque mon pays avec mes mots, mes connaissances et mon engagement. Je le raconte tel que je l’ai perçu, tel que je l’ai ressenti au travers de mes rencontres avec Kateb Yacine, les ouvrières de Sidi Bel Abbès, les paysannes de Zrizer, mes camarades du PAGS, d’Ettahadi-Taffat, du MDS, des Patriotes, des Groupes de légitime défense, des militaires, des artificiers, des familles de victimes du terrorisme, des militantes républicaines, mes collègues de la télévision… » Pour redonner vie à ce passé tragique qu’elle fait défiler sous nos yeux des années de l’après-Indépendance à nos jours, Horria Saïhi s’est attachée à recueillir la parole de femmes et d’hommes qui ont comme elle vécu, subi, résisté ou fui tout ce que l’Algérie n’a pu ou su offrir à son peuple. Enseignant, universitaire, journaliste, haut fonctionnaire, cadre d’une entreprise d’Etat, soldat ou haut gradé en service pendant la décennie noire, et encore ouvrier agricole ou simple militant : leurs récits entrecoupés de silences, de rires et de larmes esquissent le terrible tableau d’une souffrance multiforme, toujours aiguë et trop longtemps tue.

12 March 2021

African Women Journalists: Critical Engagements in African Cinemas

African Women Journalists: Critical Engagements in African Cinemas

Image: Poster of Mère-bi, a film by Ousmane William Mbaye

At the eve of African cinemas south of the Sahara, African women journalists have been at the forefront of film criticism and activism in the development of a cinema culture on the continent and the diaspora.

Senegalese Anne Mbaye d’Erneville studied journalism in Paris in the 1950s, returning to her country at the eve of independence to found a variety of cultural bodies among which include a cinema culture that has laid the foundation for contemporary cultural infrastructures. Her influences in cinema culture have spanned radio, print and television journalism and beyond. The emergence of the Dakar-based French-language women’s magazine, Awa, initially launched by 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. The first written works regarding African women in film were journalistic in nature, with photographs and short profiles of women television presenters and the first African actresses of the nascent African cinema. These reports published in 1966 and 1972 were included in the Senegal-based French-language women’s magazine Awa, la revue de la femme noire (1964-1973).

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.

Cameroonian Thérèse Sita Bella (1933-2006), who held many functions as a journalist, is most widely known for Tam Tam à Paris, a 30-minute film that she directed in 1963; documenting the National Dance Company of Cameroon during its tour in the French capital. After the production of the film, while in France, Thérèse Sita Bella continued her work as journalist during which she participated in the creation of several African-focused cultural initiatives. She returned to Cameroon in 1967, working in various culture and cinema related positions.

Amina le magazine de la femme africaine et antillaise, also a French-language magazine, created in 1972, initially based in Dakar and later in Paris in 1975, has an early and present history of featuring profiles and interviews of filmmakers, actors, producers, stakeholders and other professionals in cinema. In its pages, Guinean editor-in-chief Assiatou Bah Diallo has played an important role in the promotion of women of the moving image.

Algerian Horria Saïhi is perhaps best known for her indefatigable work as journalist, reporter, and filmmaker against government censorship and religious fundamentalism. She was a 1995 laureate of the "Courage Award" presented by the International Women's Media Foundation.

Jihan El-Tahri worked for sometime as a journalist for many prominent news agencies but gradually found her interest in documentary filmmaking as a means to explore her subject more deeply. She had this to say about her move towards the documentary:
"I realized that as journalist we do not have the time to look into what is actually happening. We have deadlines everyday so you just skim the surface constantly and you don’t get to the bottom of what this is all about. And that is why I chose documentary. Because documentary was about taking the time to look into a topic that is close to your heart and really looking at it in an angle that you choose. And doing the research and taking the time and formulating it in a way that is your own expression. Where as a journalist, there are so many constraints in terms of space, the number of words, when your editor wants it, who’s going to edit it back there. So this was not what I was looking for. What I was looking for was a mode of expression and that I obviously didn’t find in journalism."

Mauritanian journalist and director, Mariem mint Beyrouk, considered a pioneer in the field of visual media in her country, received her training in France, Tunisia and Syria after which she joined the newly-created Mauritanian television (TVM) in 1982. She founded the Association of Mauritanian Women of the Image in 2009, which brings together women in technical and artistic fields in the visual media. Several initiatives have been dedicated to showcasing women’s works, such as “Femmes et Cinéma en Mauritanie” (Women and Cinema in Mauritania) an event held in Nouakchott in 2011, highlighting films that focus on politics, the environment and social development. One of the main objectives of the Association is to raise women’s consciousness through the visual media, about health issues, women in general, mother-infant health, the excision of girls, marriage of adolescent girls, among other issues. In 2021 she was named Mauritania coordinator by the Caucus of Pan African Journalists.

Throughout the continent a cohort of women are actively engaged in film journalism following the footsteps of these trailblazing women who have come before them. The African Women in Cinema Blog has featured several of these journalist activists:

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 2018Senegalese 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.

Report by Beti Ellerson

Following are articles published on the African Women in Cinema Blog by this growing cohort of journalists. (The post will be updated to include additional names and links).

Regarding Anne Mbye d'Erneville: https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2010/09/annette-mbaye-derneville-mere-bi.html

Regarding Thérèse Sita Bella: https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2010/10/foremothers-in-african-cinema-therese.html

Regarding Horria Saihi: https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2010/01/horria-saihi-portrait.html

Regarding Jihan El-Tahri: https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2010/11/tete-tete-with-jihan-el-tahri.html

Regarding Mariem mint Beyrouk: https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2011/08/mariem-mint-beyrouk-mauritanian-women.html

Hortense Assaga
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2020/06/conference-du-pavillon-des-cinemas.html

Sitou Ayité
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2011/03/mis-me-binga-international-womens-film.html

Amina Barakat
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2012/12/asmae-el-moudir-filmmaking-has-been-my.html
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2012/09/report-on-6th-edition-of-international.html

Wendy Bashi
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2018/07/cinef-4-2018-cinema-au-feminin-kinshasa_83.html
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2018/07/clarisse-muvuba-cinef-women-who-dare-le.html

Nadège Batou
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2010/11/conversation-with-nadege-batou.html

Annette Kouamba Matondo
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2012/06/annette-kouamba-matondo-duty-of-memory.html

Pélagie Ng'onana
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2017/06/mis-me-binga-2017-womens-cinema.html
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2019/01/nejib-ayed-le-cinema-est-un-vrai-mur.html

Fatou Kiné Sene
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2013/03/mois-du-cinema-au-feminin-women-in.html
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2015/04/sur-la-rive-on-shore-byde-mariama-sy.html
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2019/11/mame-woury-thioubou-5-etoiles-un-recit.html

Domoina Ratsara

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2021/07/domoina-ratsara-malagasy-film-critic.html

Fatou Warkha
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2020/02/tv5monde-warkhatv-briser-le-silence-des.html

31 January 2010

Horria Saihi: A Portrait

Algerian Horria Saïhi is perhaps best known for her indefatigable work as journalist, reporter, and filmmaker against government censorship and religious fundamentalism. A 1995 laureate of the "Courage Award" presented by the International Women's Media Foundation, she currently lives in exile in France. I recall a very touching moment as she reflected on this celebratory occasion during our conversation at the 15th edition of FESPACO in 1997:

In 1995 I was invited to the United States and never imagined that on the other side of the ocean there existed, Americans—whites as well as blacks, who had their eyes on Algeria. They were listening and watching; I was very touched. I was invited to receive the "Courage Award" by the International Women’s Media Foundation. It was heartwarming to find myself in the middle of New York, it was a dream. I had tears in my eyes, it was very powerful. I received the prize in the name of the Algerian people; I dedicated it to the women of Algeria. The award was represented as an eagle with widespread wings, which represented force but also fragility, because it was made of crystal…

In France, Horria continues her struggle against political violence against women and religious extremism. More than a decade after the release of Algérie en Femmes in 1996, her film continues to be relevant as evident in the venues to which she is invited to screen and discuss the film. Notably, at the 2008 meeting of the French-based Union des Familles Laïques (Mouvement laïque d’education populaire) of which she holds the post of president of the UFAL-Saint-Denis.

Horria also presented Algérie en Femmes at the Maison René-Ginouvès, Archéologie et Ethnologie in November 2009, and in 2007 the film was featured at two events: as part of International Women’s Day she participated in the colloquium, Rencontre féministe sur les Femmes et l'Algérie organized by the Marche Mondiale des Femmes contre les Violences et la Pauvreté, and at the Festival Cineffable at which the film won the ProChoix Award—all venues are based in France.

Also during our conversation Horria had this to say regarding Algérie en Femmes:

Algerie en femmes resembles the title of a film that was made by René Vautier, which is called Algerie en flamme, it was about the war of liberation. In Algerie en femmes, I speak of the struggle of women. It is an intersecting perspective of a woman filmmaker and a woman photographer. The latter makes an imprint of the moment, the former speaks about her profession. There is also another realm of women: an artist-painter who continues to paint although it is prohibited; a peasant woman who takes up arms; and the wife of a director of fine arts—her husband assassinated at the same time as their son. I speak both of life and death simultaneously. It is this combat of which we are in the midst at the moment.

Relevant Links about Horria Saïhi

Algérie en femmes - Interview de Horria Saihi par Raina - Vidéo : http://www.socialgerie.net/spip.php?breve637
Conversation with Horria Saihi by Beti Ellerson (1997) - Sisters of the Screen

Horria Saihi – 1995 Laureate, Courage Award, International Women’s Media Foundation : http://www.iwmf.org/blog/1995/10/16/horria-saihi-1995-courage-in-journalism-award/

Festival Cineffable : ProChoix rend hommage au film "Algérie en femmes" : https://www.prochoix.org/cgi/blog/index.php/2007/11/08/1815-festival-cineffable-prochoix-rend-hommage-au-film-algerie-en-femmes

05 November 2009

African Women “Courage Award” Laureates

Since the International Women’s Media Foundation (USA) launched the “Courage Award” in 1990 more than 100 journalists from 56 countries have joined the list of fearless laureates, working in the diverse media of television, radio, print, and film.

Laureates from Africa include: Mwape Kumwenda (Zambia) 2015, Lusiku Nsimire (Congo-DRC) 2014, Reeyot Aleum (Ethiopia) 2012, Vicky Ntetema (Tanzania) 2010, Agnes Taile (Cameroon) 2009, Serkalem Fasil (Ethiopia) 2007, South African-born Gwen Lister (Namibia) and Salima Tlemcani (Algeria) 2004, Sandra Nyaira (Zimbabwe) 2002, Amal Abbas (Sudan) 2001, Agnes Nidorera (Burundi) 2000, Lucy Sichone (Zambia) and Saida Ramadan (Sudan) 1996, Horria Saihi (Algeria) and Chris Anyanwu (Nigeria) 1995, Catherine Gicheru (Kenya) 1992.

As we applaud their courage and fortitude, the award also reminds us of the perilous work of media professionals.

I had the pleasure of meeting Algerian Horria Saihi, one of the 1995 "Courage Award" laureates, at the 1997 FESPACO (Panafrican Film Festival of Ouagadougou) during which she presented her film Algérie en femmes. In the interview, she recounted her daunting experiences in the contemporary crisis of the fundamentalist war on culture. She had this to say about winning the "Courage Award":

"In 1995, I was invited by the International Women’s Media Foundation to received the Courage Award. It was heartwarming, really, to find myself in the middle of New York, it was a dream. I actually had tears in my eyes, it was very powerful. I received the prize in the name of the Algerian people. I dedicated the award to all the women. It was an eagle with widespread wings which represented force, but also fragility, because it was made of crystal.

I dedicated the award to two women, the women who have marked my life. One was a very good friend, a colleague and journalist, Rachida Hammadi who was assassinated by terrorist fundamentalists. She was of such fragility. She was not tall, only four feet nine inches, and frail, but of a courageous and implacable will. She was always busy and constantly in the field. You could always hear her saying "I was told that such and such a thing has just happened, we must go there." She never said that she was tired. This woman symbolized this courage for me. It is not me who was awarded this prize, it was Algeria, it was these women who continued to remain standing, who carried Algeria in their two arms.

I dedicated it to another woman who I met in a region that has suffered tremendously, Jijel, which is 500 kilometers from Algiers. It is a zone that has a reputation for being the stronghold of fundamentalists terrorists. There I met a marvelous woman. I say marvelous because, having come from a big city, we only meet intellectual women who are well-read, articulate, who are able to say what they think. But these women, we do not meet outside in the streets. Moreover, the press, the television, the cinema are interested in women who are very present before the camera, who are mediatized by the national and international press. However, this woman was in the countryside, she cultivated the land, she participated in the national liberation war in the capacity of a fighter. During the last nine months of the war she was pregnant. Thus, she was at the same time fighter and mother. And this woman brought into the world, the day of independence 5 July 1962, a child who she called Abdullah. Abdullah means the child of God, the creation of God. She could have died with the child in her womb, and yet she carried him right up until independence and brought him into the world. This child's mother, who was not literate, wanted to give him a good education--a sort of payback for her--so that he could be intelligent and go to the best schools and universities. And her son was assassinated by the terrorists. This woman took up arms again, not to avenge her son in a feudal manner, but to avenge him by continuing the fight, so that there will never be blood in our country again."

Report by Beti Ellerson. Updated April 2018.

Link: Courage Award - https://www.iwmf.org/awards/courage-in-journalism-awards/

ABOUT THE BLOGGER

Translate

Search This Blog