African Cinematography: Colonial Film to Nollywood Lecture 5

1. African Cinematography: Colonial Film to NollywoodLecture 5 Derek Barker www.derekbarker.info Dr.Derek.Barker@gmail.com

2. Five Decades of African Film • 1960s: Pioneers of Decolonisation • 1970s: Social Mirrors • 1980s: Fiction of the Self • 1990s: Individual and the World • 2000s: Journey into the Human

3. 1960s • African Filmmakers: odd “pioneers of decolonisation” aiming to re-appropriate the gaze, reacting against ideologically charged representations by colonial filmmakers, ethnologists, missionaries. = Locked in a negative dialogic relationship = Odd because considered extraneous to the project of decolonisation, a luxury, an import

4. 1960s • Fighting against the “negation of self” conveyed by colonial images • “militant” but not “banner waving” • Replacing the “civilising mission” by the “progress mission” • Denouncing obsolete customs and corrupt elites

5. 1960s • Not only a “decolonisation of gaze and thought” but a positive project of cultural assertion, claiming one’s own space and self-image • English colonists left film units established during the colonial era for purposes of propaganda; French colonists did not • Filmmakers depended on co-productions, little or no independent African production

6. 1970s • 1969 “Week of African Cinema” first held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso • 1972 Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (Festival panafricain du cinéma et de la télévision de Ouagadougou or FESPACO) • 1979 Durban International Film Festival

7. 1970s • 1970 FESPACI (Pan-African Filmmakers Federation) established • Promoted films that were militant and panafricanist - cinema as “tool of liberation” • “Commitment” films flourish; however, in practice, many introspective films made in this period: “finding the self” and populating the screen with individuals embedded in a place, thus working against the use of “Africa” in films as a “setting”

8. 1980s • “Fiction of the self” : facing the disillusionment of independence, films depicted new perspectives for social change and world views • 1982 Niamey filmmaker manifesto: called for the construction of a cinematographic industry for “anti-colonial” struggle; called for non-binding state support • CIDC – first Inter-African Consortium of Cinematographic Distribution; bankrupt by 1984

9. 1980s • Films mirrored life: dictatorships, economic struggle • African films “broke out” and entered world stage • 1987 Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival to Yeelen/The Light by LouleymaneCisse brought wide-scale recognition and commercial success • 1980s: European Film industry stale, boring: African films taken up by European audiences in this period of imaginative drought

10. 1990s • “Individual and the World” – struggle to find a path between individualism and the illusion of identity • Success of black African films decreased “because we no long knew how to listen to what they had to say” (Barlet) • 1990 Cannes Jury prize for IdrissaOuedraogo’s “Tilai” – last film to achieve real international success for that decade

11. 1990s • End of cold war and end of Africa’s role as a pawn in the struggle US-Soviet contest • Rejection of Negritude / essential “African” identity • Soyinka: “A tiger does not proclaim its tigritude; it pounces on its prey and eats it” • New cinema taking risks in form and content, asking questions without answers

12. 2000s • Journey into the Human: return to cultural roots while still rejecting fixed identities • Use of techniques of oral literature: • vagueness about the direction of the narrative; • many digressions • direct address to the camera

13. 2000s • Oral literature techniques used in films give it a rhythm comparable to the blues • Films asking questions about “journeying” into the world • Intertextual references to global cinema (Daratt uses “Hitchcock like aesthetics”; Bamako makes global appeal for a world that functions more humanely)

14. 2000s • Acutely conscious of the state of Africa • Rather than idealizing origins, African cinema questions Africa’s place in the world • Marginality no longer an issue • Films “vibrate with the complex and violent relationship to the West” • No definite answers: “no longer shapes a truth, but encourages us to reinvent it”

15. David “Tosh” Gitonga (Kenya) • Born in Nanyuki, Kenya, recently… • Debut feature film (2012) “Nairobi half life” wins many awards and is great commercial success

16. Nairobi Half Life • Released in 2012 • Set in modern day Kenya, primarily in the capital, Nairobi • “Country-bumpkin comes to the Big City” genre • Winner of many international awards

17. Film view: Nairobi Half Life Pre-screening questions • Does the nick-name for Nairobi („Nairobbery“) confirm your pre-conceived ideas about the city? You‘ve probably never been there, but you have a clear idea of what it might look like. Picture it in your mind‘s eye, and after watching, reflect on whether or not your ideas were confirmed. • Is it un-African to be gay? • Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys?