Cinema of Africa

The African cinema usually includes film production in the countries south of the Sahara since the attainment of formal independence, which came in the 1960s for many countries. In some of the geographically belonging to Africa Arab States, particularly in Egypt, a functioning film industry had developed much earlier. On the other hand, are counted for African and African cinema directors who live in the Diaspora.

Film in Africa during the colonial period

Africa was and is the "continent of projections" ( iz3w, No. 213). As for the African literature is also for African cinema in the rejection of the racist images of Africa and the Africans, who had made ​​the colonizers, an important motive. In Hollywood films, made during the colonial era, Africa is - as later in 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick - only as a backdrop. It is limited to the landscape or is decked out with some "savages" who stereotyped as dangerous, primitive ' or as' grateful ' servants are displayed. This degrading representations interspersed with modern technical means continuing the ethnic shows in which non-Europeans were exhibited in European zoos like animals.

In the French colonies, Africans were prohibited from making films specifically. The first African film, L' Afrique sur Seine Paulin Vieyra Soumanou, therefore, was built in 1955 in Paris. The theme of the Africans in the Diaspora remained an important motive of African cinema.

Before independence, a few anti-colonial films like Les statues meurent aussi by Chris Marker and Alain Resnais about the robbery of African art, which remained banned ten years or Afrique 50 by René Vauthier created over uprisings in the Ivory Coast and Upper Volta, today's Burkina Faso.

Expenses incurred during this period ethnographic films such as by Jean Rouch, however, be rejected distorting of many African filmmakers as the African reality.

1960s and 1970s

The first African film that could achieve greater international attention, was the film La Noire de .. Ousmane Sembène about the despair of an African woman who works in France as a maid. The writer Sembène had turned to the cinema to reach a wider public. He is still regarded as 'father' of African film. Sembène's home country of Senegal has long been one of the major producing countries. His first short film was made in 1963: Borromeo Sarret ( The cart man ) depicts the everyday life of a load carrier, the horse-drawn carts is taken for all sorts of services. The film describes a parabola of the structure of the young independent state, not to point out the problems without. His clear and rich at the same time, symbolic visual language Sembene has survived to this day.

With the establishment of the Pan-African film festival FESPACO 1969 in Burkina Faso, the African film created its own forum. It takes place every two years alternately with the Film Festival in Carthage ( Tunisia).

With O soleil O Med Hondo attracted attention in 1970. Politically, no less committed than Sembène, he chose a more restless, more experimental film language for his film about the experience of being foreign in France.

Production and reception conditions

Self-understanding and political ambition of the filmmakers

The self-understanding and the political demands of the filmmakers go particularly clearly from the Charte du cinéaste africain, which was unanimously adopted at the second meeting of the Association of African filmmakers FEPACI 1975 in Algiers. The filmmakers go out of the situation influenced by neo-colonialism of Africa. " The contemporary African societies still live in a situation in which they are controlled at several levels. Politically, economically and culturally " In this situation, the filmmakers saw their social responsibility to contribute to the realization of the African people, while stressing their solidarity with progressive filmmakers in other parts of the world. African cinema is thus often counted as ' third cinema '.

The objectives of the third movie theaters were in manifestos about Octavio Getino and Fernando Solanas ( For a third movie, 1968) and Julio Garcia Espinosa ( For an imperfect cinema) defined. The third movie was intended to distinguish from the first Hollywood cinema and a ' non-political ' auteur cinema.

In the words Souleymane Cissé, it is " to affirm the first task of the African cineastes, that the people here are human beings and those of their values ​​, which might be useful to others, to make known., The generation that will follow us, may open up other aspects of cinema. it is our duty to let the people understand that whites have lied with their images. " ( Thackway, p.39 )

The African film had set in the first decades primary goal is to decolonize my own pictures of the reality of the new African states and the realities facing Africa. The claim therefore had to be an explicitly political, in order to achieve this goal: deliberately picked one both from commercial Hollywood cinema as well as from European art and film from the author. The goal of the African people to return their history, was dramatically also be converted to a specifically African narrative tradition to use: the Oral tradition or oral tradition. The filmmakers were related to the griots: narrators who are traveling as historians, genealogists and ambassador in Africa and were. The rule is that the filmmakers understood not only as a modern griot, but also as a development worker for a new, critical dialogue with society.

In recent years, African cinema has turned increasingly to topics that have no more to do with the colonial or neo-colonialism. It 's own responsibility in history have gained growing importance, as well as problems that are homemade. Corruption, AIDS, women's oppression, the problem of filmmakers as elites in their own country have been added as new topics. Also increasingly different genres are served, a " African film " is no longer synonymous with a policy. There are African comedies and dramas, to find on the video market action movies and soap operas.

Women as directors

The ethnologist and filmmaker Safi Faye was the first African director who became internationally known.

1972 Sarah Maldoror had her film Sambizanga rotated about the liberation struggle in Angola. The surviving women of this war is dedicated to the resulting more than 20 years later documentary Les oubliées by Anne -Laure Folly. A recent African filmmaker is as a writer Tsitsi Dangarembga became known. As the first woman in Zimbabwe, she turned to Everyone 's Child (1996 ) a film. More movies from Dangarembga are Ivory (2002), Elephant People ( 2002) and Kare Kare Zvako: Mother's Day ( 2005). Dangarembga is also active as a producer and in 2003 launched an international film festival for women in Zimbabwe to life. 2008 Manouchka Labouba Kelly became the youngest filmmaker and first woman ever realized a feature film in Gabon. Your 40 - minute short film Le Divorce describes the conflict between tradition and modernity using the example of a young Gabonese couple tries to divorce his traditional marriage contracted.

Recent Developments

• Return to the source - Movies

• Souleymane Cissé, Yeleen (Mali 1987)
• Cheick Sissoko Omour, Guimba (Mali 1995)

These films is accused of serving the exoticist taste of European audiences.

• Films, which are located in the globalized African city such as Quartier Mozart by Jean -Pierre Bekolo (Cameroon 1992)

Cinema in the individual states

• Mozambican film
• Nigerian film
• Nigerien film

Directors by countries of origin and

• Ethiopia: Haile Gerima
• Angola: Zézé Gamboa, Orlando Fortunato de Oliveira, Maria João Ganga, Leonel Efe, Nguxi dos Santos, António Jorge, Mariano Bartolomeu, Tandu Miguiendy, Dias Júnior
• Benin: Idrissou Mora Kpaï - Jean Odoutan
• Burkina Faso: Idrissa Ouedraogo - Gaston Kaboré - Dani Kouyaté - Fanta Régina Nacro - Orissa Touré - Pierre Yaméogo
• Democratic Republic of Congo: Balufu Bakupa - Kanyinda - Joseph Kumbela - Zeka Laplaine
• Ivory Coast: Henri Duparc Desiré eCare - Fadika Kramo Lanxi - Roger Gnoan M'Bala - Jacques Trabi
• Gabon: Manouchka Kelly Labouba
• Guinea: David Achkar - Mohamed Camara - Gahité Fofana
• Guinea- Bissau: Florentino "Flora" Gomes
• Cameroon: Jean -Pierre Bekolo - Bassek Ba Kobhio - Jean Pierre Dikongue - Pipa - Jean -Marie Teno - François Woukoache
• Cape Verde: Ana Ramos Lisboa, Júlio Silvão
• Mali: Abdoulaye Ascofare - Adamo Drabo - Souleymane Cissé - Cheick Oumar Sissoko
• Mauritania: Med Hondo - Abderrahmane Sissako - Sidney Sokhana
• Mozambique: Orlando Mesquita de Lima, José Cardoso, José Luis Sol de Carvalho
• Niger: Oumarou Ganda
• Nigeria: Ola Balogun - Eddie Ugboma - Amaka Igwe - Zeb Ejiro - Lola Fani - Kayode - Bayo Awala - Izu Ojukwu - Greg Fiberesima
• Senegal: Ben Diogaye Bèye - Clarence Delgado - Ahmadou Diallo - Safi Faye - Djibril Diop Mambéty - Bouna Medoune Seye - Abacar Samb Makbaram - Sembene Ousmane Moussa Sene Absa - - Paulin Vieyra Soumanou - Moussa Touré - Mansour Sora Wade
• Togo: Anne Laure Folly
• Chad: Issa Serge Coelo - Mahamat Saleh Haroun

Festivals and sources

• FESPACO ( Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou )
• DOCKANEMA ( Documentary Festival of Maputo )
• African Film Festival ( in the Belgian city of Leuven )