Women of the Screen from the African Diaspora of Canada

Women of the Screen from the African Diaspora of Canada

Cilia Sawadogo, Najwa Tlili and Nadia Zouaoui are among the early African women filmmakers to make Canada their home to work and live. As a young university student Cilia, of German-Burkina heritage, came to Quebec to study, now decades later she is a professor at Concordia University where she teaches animation cinema. Najwa has made an important contribution to Quebecois screen culture, bringing a perspective that highlights the evolving diversity of Canadian society. She was especially active at the Vues d'Afrique International Festival, an institution that has been at the forefront in promoting the African and Creole cultures of Canada. Nadia Zouaoui, who has lived in Quebec since the late 1980s, studied at universities there and has made documentaries for the NFB, radio Canada and Aljazeera. In her co-directed film, Nadia’s Journey (2006), she returns to Kabylie, the region of Algeria where she grew up. The Islam of my Childhood (2019) is a road-movie of sorts, relates the devastating impact of political Islam on the traditional cultures and religions of Algeria.

Other women have followed their footsteps, migrating from diverse African and Caribbean countries, as well as navigating between European African diasporas or connecting within the global francophonie. For instance, Dorothy A. Atabong from Cameroon studied in the U.S. and Canada and navigates between the two locations. Also Djiboutian, Lula Ali Ismaïl, based in Canada, has a foot in three continents, in Paris, Montreal and on diverse locations in Africa. Malagasy cultural producer Tiana Rafidy followed a similar transnational trajectory. Djia Mambu, who has since returned to Belgium, spent ten years in Canada during which time she initiated the Ottawa-based VisuElles Film Festival in 2017. Sierra-Leonean-Canadian Ngardy Conteh George uses her camera to tell stories of the Africa and the Diaspora. The co-directed film The Flying Stars, focuses on amputee soccer in post-war Sierra Leone. With the documentary Into the Light, Togolese filmmaker Gentille M Assih focuses her camera on the empowering life stories of Quebecois women of West African origin, as they attempt to break out of the cycle of domestic violence. Tunisian-born Najwa Tlili brought this phenomenon to light decades before with her film Rupture. She had this to say in to me in an interview in 1997: "Rupture is a film that addresses the problem of conjugal violence lived by Arab women in Canada. While doing this film about conjugal violence, I discovered that the complexities of this inquiry are tied to the circumstances of immigration, and the host country and its culture..."

Notes continuing…by Beti Ellerson

Following is a selection of articles focusing on women of the African Diaspora of Canada published on the African Women in Cinema Blog:

Gentille M Assih - Sortir de l’ombre | Into the Light  
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2021/04/vues-dafrique-2021-gentille-m-assih.html

Cilia Sawadogo - Presidentes des jurys FESPACO 2019 : Séries télévisuelles et de cinéma d’animation | TV serials and animation
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2019/02/cilia-sawadogo-presidentes-des-jurys-fespaco-2019.html

Fespaco 2019 @CNA : Dhalinyaro by/de Lula Ali Ismail (Djibouti) – Village Cinéma Numérique Ambulant | “Digital Mobile Cinema”
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2019/02/fespaco-2019-cna-dhalinyaro-byde-lula.html

IIFF 2018 - International Images Film Festival for Women : Sound of Tears, Dorothy A. Atabong, Cameroon/Canada
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2018/08/iiff-2018-international-images-film_22.html

LAFF 2015 - Nadia Zouaoui : Post-9/11: Fear, Anger and Politics | Peur, Colère et Politique
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2015/03/laff-2015-nadia-zouaoui-post-911-fear.html

FESPACO 2015 - Rachèle Magloire and/et Chantal Regnault : Deported | Expulsés
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2015/02/fespaco-2015-rachele-magloire-andet.html

World Premiere: “The Flying Stars” by Ngardy Conteh George (Sierra Leone-Canada) and Allan Tong – 14 November 2014
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2014/11/world-premiere-flying-stars-by-ngardy.html

Femmes de cinéma, cinéma de femmes | Women of cinema, cinemas of women de/by Djia Mambu, Africiné, Montréal
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2014/04/femmes-de-cinema-cinema-de-femmes-women.html

FESPACO 2013 - Lula Ali Ismaïl : Laan | Les Copines | Girlfriends
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2013/02/fespaco-2013-lula-ali-ismail-laan-les.html

Tiana Rafidy: Lorety sy Mardy
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2011/03/tiana-rafidy-lorety-sy-mardy.html

Najwa Tlili: Reflections on her film "Rupture"
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2010/06/najwa-tlili-reflections-on-her-film.html

Festival Films Femmes Afrique 2020 - Nadia Zouaoui : L'Islam de mon enfance (The Islam of my childhood)

Films Femmes Afrique

Nadia Zouaoui

L'Islam de mon enfance

(The Islam of my childhood)

Algeria | Canada - 2019 - 87 min - Documentary

Longs-métrages en compétition |

Feature films in competition

Synopsis

« L’Islam de mon enfance » est une sorte de road-movie qui décrypte l’impact dévastateur de l’islam politique sur la culture et les traditions religieuses en Algérie. Le pays qui a connu le pire du terrorisme islamiste avec sa « décennie noire » et ses 200 000 victimes nous bouleverse par les témoignages de citoyens. Ils racontent les drames vécus, leurs résistances et leurs questionnements du sens profond de leur foi face aux diktats étouffants et aux dérives meurtrières de l’intégrisme et de la dictature en place. Ces gens ont pavé le chemin de la nouvelle révolution algérienne d’aujourd’hui !

l'Islam de mon enfance is a kind of road movie, deciphering the devastating impact of political Islam on culture and religious traditions in Algeria. The country that has experienced the worst of Islamist terrorism with its "dark decade" and its 200,000 victims; we are shaken by the testimony of citizens. They recount the trauma that they experienced, their resistance and their questions about the deep meaning of their faith in the face of suffocating diktats, murderous excesses of fundamentalism and the dictatorship that was in place. These people have paved the way for today's new Algerian revolution!

Biographie | Biography

Née en Algérie, Nadia Zouaoui vit au Québec depuis 1988 où elle a fait des études en littérature et en communication à l’Université de Montréal et de McGill. Elle a travaillé pour Radio Canada français et anglais et a fait du documentaire pour l’ONF, radio Canada  et pour la Chaine Documentaire d’Aljazeera. Son premier film d’auteur, Le Voyage de Nadia, lève le voile sur la souffrance des femmes dans sa société patriarcale qui l’a vue grandir en Algérie.  Le film a raflé plusieurs prix dont le Gémeau de la meilleure écriture documentaire au Québec et un prix aux RIDM. Peur, colère et politique, son film sur la montée de l’islamophobie politique aux États Unis a aussi raflé plusieurs prix dont la Meilleur Production Canadienne Indépendante et une Mention Spéciale du Jury des Droits de la Personne au Festival Vues d’Afrique.

Born in Algeria, Nadia Zouaoui has lived in Quebec since 1988 where she studied literature and communication at the University of Montreal and McGill University. She has worked for Radio Canada in French and English, and has made documentaries for the NFB, radio Canada and the Aljazeera Documentary Channel. Her first film d’auteur, Le Voyage de Nadia, sheds light on the suffering of women in her patriarchal society in which she grew up in Algeria. The film won several awards, including the Gémeau in Quebec for best documentary script and a prize at the RIDM. Peur, colère et politique (Fear, anger and politics), her film about the rise of political Islamophobia in the United States also won several prizes, including the Best Independent Canadian Production and a Special Mention by the Human Rights Jury at the Vues d'Afrique Festival.

LAFF 2015 - Nadia Zouaoui : Post-9/11: Fear, Anger and Politics | Peur, Colère et Politique

©Nadia Zouaoui

Luxor African Film Festival | Le festival du film africain de Louxor 2015 : Freedom Films | Films de liberations

Post-9/11: Fear, Anger and Politics | Peur, Colère and Politique  (2012)

Nadia Zouaoui (Algeria-Canada)

The filmmaker | La réalisatrice

[English]

Journalist and filmmaker, Nadia Zouaoui was born in Algeria and has lived in Quebec, Canada since 1988. She studied literature and journalism at the University of Montreal and McGill University.

Nadia works for the French and the English CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation ), for the NFB (National Film Board of Canada) and for the Aljazeera Documentary Film Channel.

Nadia’s Journey, a film about the condition of women in Algeria, received the Gemini Award from the Academy of Canadian Television & Cinema, an award at the RIDM (Montreal International Documentary Festival) and the Grand award at FIGRA (Festival International du Grand reportage d’Actualité et du Documentaire de Société) in France.

[Français]

Née en Algérie, Nadia Zouaoui vit au Québec depuis 1988 où elle a fait des études en littérature et en communication à l’Université de Montréal et de McGill. Elle a travaillé pour Radio Canada français et anglais ainsi que pour l’ONF (l’Office National du Film du Canada) et pour la Chaine Documentaire d’Aljazeera.

Elle a gagné plusieurs prix notamment pour son film d’auteur, Le Voyage de Nadia, qui lui a valu le Gémeau de la meilleure écriture documentaire au Québec. Un prix aux RIDM (Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal) et le grand prix du FIGRA en France (Festival International du Grand reportage d’Actualité et du Documentaire de Société.)

Synopsis

[English]

Source: NadiaZouaoui.com

Ten years after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the war on terror has created a lot of injustices within the Muslim Communities in the United States.

While putting human faces on Islamophobia in America, this film also tries to draw a bigger political picture of a fringe group of Islamophobes who manufacture the fear of Islam to feed their own political agenda!

[Français]

Source: Vues d'Afrique

Le documentaire controversé de Nadia Zouaoui revient sur les répercussions des attentats du 11 septembre 2001 sur la communauté musulmane aux Etats-Unis.

Tout en mettant des visages sur l’islamophobie, ce film essaye d’expliquer le travail de sape des islamophobes qui cultivent cette peur de l’islam pour faire avancer leur propre agenda politique. On fait notamment la connaissance d’Adama, une collégienne d’origine africaine qui a séjourné en prison après un interrogatoire musclé, ainsi que de deux autres jeunes musulmans et de leurs familles.

Source: http://nadiazouaoui.com

Image : http://nadiazouaoui.com 

Link | Lien

Luxor African Film Festival | Le festival du film africain de Louxor 2015 : Official Selection | Sélection officielle

http://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2015/03/luxor-african-film-festival-le-festival.html