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.

 

Pascale Obolo: « La Fabrique des contre-récits » (Making counter-narratives) à la Cité audacieuse, Paris

Pascale Obolo: Projection du film « La Fabrique des contre-récits » à la Cité audacieuse, Paris - lundi 24 octobre 2022 à 19h 

Pascale Obolo: Film screening of « La Fabrique des contre-récits » (Making counter-narratives) à la Cité audacieuse, Paris - Monday October 24, 2022 at 7 p.m.

https://www.centre-simone-de-beauvoir.com/category/agenda/

La Fabrique des contre-récits de Pascale Obolo. Belgique, France, 2021, 65 min

(Making counter-narratives) by Pascale Obolo. Belgium, France, 2021, 65 mins

En partenariat avec le Centre culturel de Strombeek & le S.M.A.K, musée municipal d’art contemporain.

In partnership with the Strombeek Cultural Center & the SMAK, Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art (Belgium).

Lundi 24 octobre 2022 à 19h | Monday October 24, 2022 at 7 p.m. 

à La Cité Audacieuse 9 rue de Vaugirard 75006 Paris

La séance sera suivie d’une rencontre avec Pascale Obolo.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Pascale Obolo.

Le film :

Que signifie écrire un contre-récit ?

Les plasticiennes Luna Mahoux, Agnès Lalau, Laura Nsengiyumva, Mireille Asia Nyembo, et la photographe Hélène Hamou, évoquent leur parcours artistique et professionnel en Belgique.

Confrontées à une histoire de l’art occidentale et blanche, elles parlent dans leur travaux de l’héritage colonial et de leur corps. Elles élaborent une contre-narration face à un récit qui se veut “universaliste” mais qui est de fait réducteur.

Elles soulèvent les questions du racisme ordinaire et structurel présent dans les institutions d’art et les écoles occidentales.

Ces artistes mènent un véritable combat pour inventer des nouveaux mondes et de nouvelles pratiques en transmettant des récits émanant de personnes racisées dont les voix sont réduites la plupart du temps au silence.

What does it mean to write a counter-narrative?

 
Visual artists Luna Mahoux, Agnès Lalau, Laura Nsengiyumva, Mireille Asia Nyembo, and photographer Hélène Hamou, relate their artistic and professional journey in Belgium.

 
Confronted with a history of Western and white art, they talk about their work as it relates to their body and in the context of the heritage of colonialism. By developing a counter-narrative, they confront this narrative that claims “universality” but that is in fact reductive.

 
They raise questions of ordinary and structural racism present in Western art institutions and schools.

These artists lead a genuine fight to recreate new worlds and new practices by imparting stories from racialized people, whose voices are often silenced.

Pascale Obolo

Cinéaste, chercheuse, commissaire d’exposition indépendante, rédactrice en chef de la revue Afrikadaa.

Née à Yaoundé, Cameroun, elle étudie au Conservatoire Libre du cinéma Français en section réalisation, puis obtient un master de cinéma à l’Université Paris 8, section cinéma expérimental. Ses premiers films documentent le début du mouvement Hip Hop et la scène parisienne graffiti. Cinéaste féministe, elle s’est penchée sur la place des femmes dans les milieux artistiques.

« Mes recherches portent sur les différentes pratiques de transmissions des savoirs et les pédagogies décoloniales en art et dans les milieux militants. »

Ses domaines de réflexion interrogent la pratique muséale dans un processus de recomposition des récits inclusifs.

Filmmaker, researcher, independent exhibition curator, editor-in-chief of the magazine Afrikadaa.

Born in Yaoundé, Cameroon, she studied directing at the Conservatoire Libre du cinéma Français, then obtained a Master's in cinema at Université Paris 8, with a specialization in experimental cinema. Her earlier films document the beginning of the Hip Hop movement and the Parisian graffiti scene. A feminist cineaste, she focuses on women in the world of art.

“My research focuses on the different practices of transmission of knowledge and decolonial pedagogies in art and activism.” 

Her spheres of reflection interrogate extant museum practice, hence she works within a process of recomposing inclusive narratives.

Pascale Obolo est à l’origine de la structure Afrikadaa Lab, revue d’art contemporain.

Elle dirige aussi l’African Art Book Fair (AABF).

Pascale Obolo is the creator of Afrikadaa Lab, a contemporary art magazine.
She also directs the African Art Book Fair (AABF).

En partenariat avec la Cinématheque du documentaire, Foundation des femmes, Ville de Paris

In partnership with la Cinématheque du documentaire, Foundation des femmes, Ville de Paris

African Women in Cinema Blog - Updates | Actualités 17.01.2020 - News around the Internet | Les infos autour de l’Internet

African Women in Cinema Blog

Updates | Actualités

17.01.2020

News around the Internet |

Les infos autour de l’Internet

Content | Contenu

Chinonye Chukwu

Tsitsi Dangarembga

Claire Diao

Khadidia Djigo

Maimouna Doucouré

Rahmatou Keïta

Marème N'Diaye

Pascale Obolo

Akosua Adoma Owusu

Chinonye Chukwu

Chinonye Chukwu to helm first two episodes of Lupita Nyong'o HBO Max Series "Americanah"

Source: Deadline.com by Patrick Hipes. 15 January 2020.

https://deadline.com/2020/01/chinonye-chukwu-americanah-director-lupita-nyongo-hbo-max-series-1202831886/

Tsitsi Dangarembga

Tsitsi Dangarembga: 'Reading Toni Morrison's Beloved Changed my life'

Source: Guardian.com 10 January 2020.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/10/tsitsi-dangarembga-books-that-made-me

Khadidia Djigo

Les Émissions CANAL+ Afrique

Claire Diao - TV s'est rendue au CanalOlympia Téranga de Dakar pour rencontrer sa directrice Khadidia Djigo

Source: Les Emissions CANAL+ Afrique Facebook Videos. 06 January 2020.

https://www.facebook.com/emissionscanalplusafrique/videos/461228978161992/

Maimouna Doucouré

Netflix Buys World Rights to Maimouna Doucouré’s Sundance-Player ‘Cuties’ - (Mignonnes)

Source: Variety.com by Martin Dale. 14 January 2020.

https://variety.com/2020/film/global/netflix-buys-world-rights-to-maimouna-doucoures-sundance-player-cuties-1203467013/

Rahmatou Keïta

Tête à tête avec Rahmatou Keïta

Source: Cameroon-tribune.com by Maimounatou. 07 janvier 2020.

https://www.cameroon-tribune.cm/article.html/30184/fr.html/CT-article

Marème N'Diaye

Les Émissions CANAL+ Afrique

Claire Diao - TV a rencontré l'actrice sénégalaise Marème N'Diaye actuellement en tournage sur l'île de Gorée, à Dakar

Source: Les Emissions CANAL+ Afrique Facebook Videos. 15 January 2020.

https://www.facebook.com/emissionscanalplusafrique/videos/505709106965048/

Pascale Obolo

Rencontre avec Pascale Obolo, cinéaste et fondatrice de la revue d’art Afrikadaa
« On ne peut plus continuer à parler de nous, sans nous ! »

Source: 9lives-magazine.com. 14 janvier 2020

https://www.9lives-magazine.com/48413/2019/01/14/rencontre-avec-pascale-obolo-cineaste-et-fondatrice-de-la-revue-dart-afrikadaa-on-ne-peut-plus-continuer-a-parler-de-nous-sans-nous/

VIDEO

Akosua Adoma Owusu

White Afro Trailer by Akosua Adoma Owusu

https://vimeo.com/348566057

Synopsis
A barber school haircut training video on how to give a white person an "Afro" hair-do.

The final film in Owusu’s hair trilogy, White Afro (2019), employs an archival instructional video produced by the educational department of the Barbers, Beauticians, and Allied Industries Association on how to offer curly perms or body waving services to their white clientele, ostensibly for financial gain. The training video is intermingled with Owusu’s mother’s experience working as a hairstylist at a predominantly white hair salon called Fantastic Sam's in Alexandria, Virginia. Offering a rare perspective on the Afro hairstyle—as an unmistakable marker of Black collective power that becomes a desirable, and appropriated, aesthetic during liberation movements—the film also expands on the abilities of non-Black beauticians and barbers to wield their shops as spaces for political change. -- CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts

White Afro Trailer by Akosua Adoma Owusu from Obibini Pictures LLC on Vimeo.

Women Filmmakers in the African Diasporic World - Fall 2015 - New York University

Institute of African American Affairs
Department of Cinema Studies
at
New York University
presents

Women Filmmakers in the African Diasporic World - Fall 2015

Nadia El Fani, Pascale Obolo, and Hind Meddeb

These series of films by African and African diaspora women represent NYU’s Institute of African American Affairs and Cinema Studies’ continuing exploration of new approaches to film, gender and society. The screenings present a rare opportunity to have rich discussions with women directors Nadia El Fani, Pascale Obolo, and Hind Meddeb as they offer insight on the ways in which they engage the medium. Their films cast a new look at religion, sexuality, education, and music in areas of the world as diverse as Egypt, Tunisia, and Tobago. Through the contemporary social issues they address, they reframe/reflect on history and offer possibilities of the future.

Nadia El Fani - Monday, November 2nd

Neither Allah, Nor Master!

Pascale Obolo - Friday, November 13th

Calypso Rose, The Lioness of the Jungle

Hind Meddeb - Tuesday, November 17th

Electro Chaabi

Pascale Obolo : 2e prix pour le meilleur documentaire | 2nd Prize for best documentary - FESPACO 2013

Pascale Obolo : 2e prix pour le meilleur documentaire | 2nd Prize for best documentary - FESPACO 2013

In English below

Extraits d'entretien avec Pascale Obolo, réalisatrice camerounaise de Calypso Rose. Propos recueillis par Harouna Gorel dans le cadre de l'atelier du Bulletin Africiné - Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), FESPACO 2013. 

Bonjour Pascale, pouvez-vous nous présenter votre film Calypso Rose ? 

Calypso Rose est une artiste. La première femme à avoir remporté le titre de reine du calypso, et qui faisait partie aussi du premier mouvement féministe à Trinidad. Toute sa vie, elle s'est battue pour le droit et l'égalité des femmes dans les Caraïbes. Pour moi, elle est un exemple en qui beaucoup de femmes peuvent se retrouver, aussi bien les Occidentales que les Africaines.

Calypso Rose est dans la compétition documentaire… 

Oui et c'est la première fois au Fespaco. Je suis très contente surtout que Rose a toujours voulu que ce film soit vu en Afrique. J'espère que ce film va être remarqué, parce que je trouve qu'il a une écriture innovante pour le cinéma africain et qu'on a besoin de gens qui essaient d'innover dans l'écriture, qui essaient de faire avancer, de faire évoluer le cinéma, de montrer un autre cinéma, différent, moderne, et qui dialogue avec le monde entier. C'est tout ce travail sur l'esthétique qui m'intéresse. De montrer que même à travers l'esthétique on peut raconter, montrer des histoires fortes qui touchent les gens.

Donc je suis très ravie d'être interviewée par la critique, parce que j'ai moi-même une revue d'art contemporain africain [www.afrikadaa.com, Ndlr. Cliquez], je suis la rédactrice en chef de cette revue qui est en ligne, et je pense que la critique est importante pour nous, artistes. Ça nous permet de nous poser des questions sur notre travail, de nous remettre en question et donc d'évoluer aussi.

Calypso Rose est un film qui nous fait voyager : Trinidad, les États-Unis, l'Afrique. Pourquoi ?

C'est une construction très spéciale. Dans mes films, je travaille beaucoup sur les nouvelles écritures, sur l'évolution des langages cinématographiques, donc visuelles. Dans chaque ville, on découvre une facette de l'histoire de cette femme.

Tobago, c'est sa ville de naissance. New York, c'est la femme immigrée qui part à la conquête du monde, qui lutte pour ses droits et pour le respect de l'égalité des droits des femmes. Paris, c'est la femme artiste, parce que c'est une Diva qui a sacrifié toute sa vie à la musique, à son art. Et quelque part, ce sacrifice fait aussi qu'elle ait connu la solitude. Parce qu'elle ne vit qu'à travers la scène. C'est comme une espèce de drogue. Aujourd'hui, elle a soixante-treize ans, mais elle continue à tourner, à faire des concerts dans le monde entier.

Excerpted from an interview in French with Pascale Obolo, Cameroonian filmmaker of Calyso Rose by Harouna Gorel, Africiné, during Fespaco 2013 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

Greetings Pascale, could you tell us about your film?

Calypso Rose is an artist. The first woman to have the title of queen of calypso and was part of the first feminist movement of Trinidad. All of her life she has fought for women's rights in the Caribbean. For me, she is an example that many woman may recognize in themselves, both western and African.

Calypso Rose is in the documentary competition...

Yes and it is my first time here at Fespaco. I am very happy especially because Rose has always wanted the film to be seen in Africa. I hope that the film makes its mark, because I find that it has an innovative visual wrirting for African cinema and that we need people who try to be innovative in their style, who try to push things further, to evolve filmmaking, to show another cinema, that is different, modern and that dialogues with the entire world. Working aesthetically is what interests me. And to show that  through the aesthetic, one may tell, recount forceful stories that touch people.

So I am delighted to be interviewed by a critic because I myself have a revue of contemporary African art, Afrikadaa; I am the editor of the online review and I think that cultural criticism is important for us, artists. It allows us to pose questions about our work, to challenge ourselves and thus to also evolve.

Calypso Rose is a film that allows us to travel: to Trinidad, the United States, Africa. Why this choice?

It is constructed in a particular way. In my films, I work a lot with new visual writing, the evolution of film language. In each city, one discovers a facet of this woman's life.

Tobago is her birthplace. New York, it is there that this immigrant woman goes to conquer the world, she fights for her rights and for equal rights for women. In Paris, she is the woman artist, the Diva who has dedicated her whole life to music, to her art. And in some ways, because of this dedication she has experienced solitude. Because the stage is her life. It is like a drug. Today she is seventy-three years old, but she continues to do concert tours around the world.

FESPACO 2013 - Pascale Obolo : "Calypso Rose the lioness of the jungle"

Pascale Obolo

Fespaco 2013 - Documentary | Documentaire

Calypso Rose the lioness of the jungle (2011)

Pascale Obolo  (Cameroun | Cameroon)
2E PRIX | 2ND PRIZE

The filmmaker | La réalisatrice

[English]

Born in Cameroon, Pascale Obolo studied at the Ecole du Conservatoire Libre du Cinema Français. Passionate about visual arts and music, urban culture pioneer, she filmed the hip-hop movement and Parisian graffiti painters’ scene. She produces reports and documentaries for the Cameroonian television. She collaborates with artists of street art such as Jonone, Shuck, A-One, Jay-ONE and Virgin Music France for which she signed several portraits of artists including Manu Chao, Les Nubians, 3canal, Mungal Patasar, Calypso Rose...

[Français]

Née au Cameroun, Pascale Obolo étudie à l’Ecole du Conservatoire Libre du Cinéma Français. Passionnée par les arts visuels et la musique, pionnière de la culture urbaine, elle filme le mouvement hip-hop et la scène parisienne des artistes peintres graffiti. Elle réalise des reportages et des documentaires pour la Télévision Camerounaise. Elle collabore avec des artistes de la street art tels que Jonone, Shuck, A-One, Jay-ONE et avec Virgin Music France pour qui elle signe plusieurs portraits d’artistes dont Manu Chao, Les Nubians, 3canal, Mungal Patasar, Calypso rose …

Synopsis

[English]

"I did not become a singer of calypso, I was born into calypso" Calypso Rose states. The film is first of all an intimate portrait of the grande diva of Calypso, but it is also a voyage that takes us to the island of Trinidad-Tobago, to New York, Paris, Ouidah and Cotonou. Each of these destinations allows us to discover a particular episode of Rose's life. Calypso Rose delivers: she invokes her childhood, her sources of inspiration, her journey, her humanitarian commitment and her engagement for the recognition of women's rights...but also the faith that guides her life, which has been of paramount importance throughout her artistic trajectory.

[Français]

« Je ne suis pas devenue une chanteuse de Calypso, je suis née dans le Calypso » dit Calypso Rose. Ce film est tout d’abord un portrait intimiste sur la grande diva du Calypso, mais c’est aussi un voyage qui nous emmène de l’île de Tobago (l’idyllique île de Robinson Crusoe), à New York, Paris, Ouidah et Cotonou. Chacune de ces destinations nous fait découvrir un épisode particulier de la vie de Rose. Calypso Rose se livre : elle évoque son enfance, ses sources d’inspiration, son parcours, son engagement pour l’humanitaire et pour la reconnaissance des droits des femmes… mais aussi la foi qui guide sa vie, d’une importance capitale dans son cheminement artistique.

Image source : ttfilmfestival

Pascale Obolo: The Visible Woman ("La Femme invisible/The Invisible Woman" - Trans-Europe-Afrique 32nd Festival International de Films de Femmes 2010)

PASCALE OBOLO: THE VISIBLE WOMAN

Pascale Obolo reflects on her personal experience of invisibility in French society by invoking the American film and TV episode “The Invisible Man”, whose character transforms himself at will. However, the feelings that she describes in her film, The Invisible Woman, may be likened to the American novel, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, an African American. The story is narrated by an unnamed black man who contemplates on his social invisibility in a dominant white society. Or perhaps Pascale Obolo’s sense of invisibility may conjure up Black Skin White Masks by the Martinican Frantz Fanon, as she feels the weight of otherness when living outside of her own world. 

The film was presented at the 32nd International Women’s Film Festival, the 2 to 11 April 2010.

Interview by Festimage with Pascale Obolo discussing her film "La Femme invisible/The Invisible Woman" (2008) with actor Dalande Gomis presented at the 32nd International Women’s Film Festival, 2 to 11 April 2010.

05:31 – 11:28

Translation from French by Beti Ellerson

Presenter:

Her short film reveals her engagement as a woman in a modern society.

Pascale is a filmmaker who does not leave one indifferent.

She has come to our studio with her actor Dalande Gomis.

Pascale Obolo:

I wanted to do an artistic piece

and tie it to the issue of the representation of women 

in society in general, and the idea of the film began from there.

I did it as a kind of experimental cinema.

It is a visual philosophical story

It is a work based on framing and the superimposed image.

At the beginning the film the image is framed in a manner that does not allow one to see the woman’s face.

In the first scene, she is about to use the telephone.

There are three superimposed images.

Initially, she is in the telephone booth

and then, the trees from the other side appear superimposed on the glass of the telephone booth

and from behind, the building becomes visible and the protagonist is in the middle.

One after the other, all of the images are superimposed on each other.

Hence, she is already lost in the landscape, lost in the frame, and the film begins in this manner.

Next, there is a shot of her feet as she moves in space

showing her invisibility in French society.

I think that for an actor what is important is to bring out an emotion

and the emotion is not defined by race. Emotion is something that touches our heart.

And when you come to a casting call, you must be given the chance to express yourself

to be able to bring out these things—sadness, joy…

As a director, I think that the most important thing is that an actor reveals emotion.

that the audience is touched, and that is why we enter into the film.

Dalande Gomis:

Precisely, that is what I live as an actor who comes from a minority ethnicity—we have to really look for roles.

Even during a casting call we are told right away “you do not match this role”.

It hurts, but we live with it.

Thank goodness I have known Pascale for a longtime, and as soon as she has a project

I am part of it, especially this one, which concerns me directly.

Pascale Obolo:

When there is a feature or short film that is meant to represent French society

as it actually is, with a population that has evolved, that has changed a great deal

and which is enriched by its immigration history, there is hesitation.

It is for this reason that I have set the year 2055 to arrive at this goal.

To move things,

I think that things move too slowly.

And yet, France has a history with Africa that dates back to the slave trade era.

And when we see what is happening in French society in 2010, we notice a real problem.

There have been several films with a black president

as if the films had anticipated the election in 2009 of a black president of the most powerful country in the world.

That is the force of cinema, the power to project forward.

There is opposition to a quota system in cinema because people say

it is not needed

that French society is not racist

and a quota system is not necessary.

Why then aren’t there more films

where there is a mixture of black and white actors

who act together in important roles without clichés such as the immigrant neighborhoods, the dealers, and housekeepers.

The Invisible Woman (voiceover from film excerpt)

I am an invisible woman

I am from a visible minority

I remember the American television series called “The Invisible Man”.

I liked this series a lot because I could transform myself into any human being

taking the place of another

How wonderful it was!

I was far from imagining that I would find myself invisible in Western society.

What was a dream when I was a child became a nightmare as an adult.

Links

Interview with Pascale Obolo by Mériam Azizi (in French)