The African screen

Sunday 21 October 2012

Ever wondered why it is that the world's second-biggest continent (in both size and population), delivers so few films to our screens?

Maami

Custom byline text:

Authentic African cinema is notoriously difficult to come by, which is why Scotland’s AiM festival must be seized upon. By Hannah McGill

The notion of African cinema might put you in mind of the odd earnest, sandy tone-poem glimpsed on an arthouse outing, or maybe the glossy sweep of American- and British-backed English language epics like The African Queen and Cry Freedom. More recently, perhaps you caught Tsotsi, which won the 2005 Oscar for best foreign language film and propelled its director, Gavin Hood, directly to Hollywood; Claire Denis's sad, gorgeous White Material, starring Isabelle Huppert; or the phenomenal District 9, spun out from a low-budget short and nursed into being by Peter Jackson.

Or perhaps you've encountered the work of a handful of internationally celebrated auteurs: Mali's Souleymane Cissé, Senegal's Ousmane Sembène, Burkina Faso's Gaston Kaboré. On the whole, however, Africa's cinema remains obscure to most people outside the continent. It's also a young culture, the development of which was stunted by political tumult and internal unrest through the years when film-making was burgeoning elsewhere.Colonial powers controlled, censored and in some cases prevented local film production – the Laval Decree of 1934, most notoriously, forbade any unauthorised filming in French African colonies. No film festival or filmmakers' representative body existed until the establishment of Burkina Faso's biennial FESPACO festival and the Federation of African Filmmakers in 1969. So the mechanisms for training and encouraging filmmakers, and for getting their work out into the wider world, are not necessarily long-established, and can be far from slick. FESPACO is hardly as yet an indispensable stopping-off point on the festival circuit, and is celebrated by those who do attend not so much for glitz or influence as for spit-and-sawdust spontaneity and a near-total lack of pushy publicists.In other words, don't beat yourself up if your knowledge of African cinema doesn't extend much beyond Meryl Streep and her famous farm. It hasn't been that easy to get hold of; and in spite of sterling efforts by enthusiasts such as the critic Mark Cousins to open minds and stimulate curiosity, that which is being produced in Africa is often hard to promote in other markets.Here arises one of the perennial dilemmas of the international film festival programmer: do you show films from lesser-known territories with emerging industries, even if they're rough at the edges, or settle only for those films that can mimic the gloss to which Hollywood-ised eyes are accustomed? Do the former, and you risk annoying your audience with inadequate technical or professional standards; stick to the latter game and become a purveyor of the blandly predictable. (Non-Bollywood cinema from India is a similarly challenging scene to represent.)Increasingly, though, I find that I'd rather watch an odd, unpredictable, flawed film from a continent still cinematically undefined than sit through another precision-tooled Hollywood tasteful international artefact cut to the exact specifications of the international arthouse market. So bring on the diverse and sometimes oddball content that makes up Africa in Motion – Scotland's own festival of African cinema, and still one of few points of entry for British audiences to the continent's current scene.The festival was established in 2006 by the South African-born academic Lizelle Bisschoff, and currently under the directorship of Isabel Moura Mendes, whose family originates from Cape Verde. It tours Scotland after its main dates in Edinburgh and Glasgow, offering films that can't be seen anywhere else outside of Africa to expanding audiences; children's films are included, as are art exhibitions and music events. Africa in Motion is a true labour of love, as well as a significant UK point of access for African filmmakers – just by programming these films, Mendes and her team increase their chances of being picked up by other festivals and screened elsewhere.Look out this year for some interesting experiments with genre. Bobb Muchiri's Kichwateli ("TV-Head") is an "Afro-sci-fi-music-mentary", in Swahili, with time travel, which I'd hazard would be a first for most of us. Hasaki Ya Suda ("Swords") takes Japanese samurai codes deep into the deserts of Burkina Faso – and why not? Elsewhere, the gorgeously-titled Les Saignantes ("The Bloodettes") is a futuristic political thriller in which the nation of Cameroon succumbs to a distinctly sexy sort of gender war; and Essaha ("The Square"), a story of popular resistance to corporate might, dubs itself Algeria's first ever musical comedy.Inevitably, suck-it-and-see plays a part with festivals of foreign film – it's hard to get a firm steer on whether you'll like something when very few around the world have seen it all.But therein, surely, lies the thrill. If you've ever heard yourself complain about cookie-cutter mainstream movies with interchangeable plotlines, there's no excuse not to dip into a programme guaranteed to supply surprises. Africa in Motion also brings some of its film-makers to town, offering Scottish audiences a rare chance to chat through how film-making works in lands they'll likely never get to visit. Grand old men (it does mostly seem to be men) of the film industry like to tell us at the moment that it's pretty much over for cinema; that Hollywood has had its day and digital has sapped its soul. But in large parts of the world, cinema is still getting going – still defining itself, still establishing a canon, still spreading its techniques and its influence. And sometimes, via initiatives like Africa in Motion, we get to be part of it. Get moving.Africa In Motion (AiM) runs from Thursday, October 25 to Friday, November 2 at Edinburgh Filmhouse and Glasgow Film Theatre. www.africa-in-motion.org.uk

Contextual targeting label:

Arts and Entertainment

Commenting & Moderation

We moderate all comments on HeraldScotland on either a pre-moderated or post-moderated basis. If you're a relatively new user then your comments will be reviewed before publication and if we know you well then your comments will be subject to moderation only if other users or the moderators believe you've broken the rules, which are available here.

Moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours. Please be patient if your posts are not approved instantly.

The African screen

Commenting & Moderation

MOST READ

SPONSORED LINKS

MOST COMMENTED