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African Cinematography: Colonial Film to Nollywood Lecture 2

African Cinematography: Colonial Film to Nollywood Lecture 2. Derek Barker www.derekbarker.info Dr.Derek.Barker@gmail.com. Key Material Issues impacting conditions of production of African film. Foreign financing Foreign audiences. Barlet.

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African Cinematography: Colonial Film to Nollywood Lecture 2

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  1. African Cinematography: Colonial Film to NollywoodLecture 2 Derek Barker www.derekbarker.info Dr.Derek.Barker@gmail.com

  2. Key Material Issues impacting conditions of production of African film • Foreign financing • Foreign audiences

  3. Barlet Barlet, Olivier. Africultures Dossier „Five Decades of African Film“ (four essays)

  4. Barlet I Western criticism reflects the [paying] public’s desires and thus the success of these films in Europe, films by directors of African descent must intrinsically prove their African identity. They can then receive the supreme blessing: general recognition of their “authenticity.”

  5. Barlet II LOADED GAZE OF THE WEST: two criteria come into play: • demand for exoticism: films must be limited to both a geographic territory [Africa] and an ideological territory (an Africa that is magical, immemorial, legendary, mythical, and so on). • demand for reality: films must document contemporary African problems, which, in general, are limited to those of the urban milieu. Fictions must be based on the experiences of a disintegrating Africa.

  6. Barlet III – 1960/70s • Early post-independence films of 1960s and 1970s were about re-appropriating one’s own gaze • Widespread belief that affirming one’s culture was part of the solution to economic and political problems • Radical films attacking neocolonialism, corrupt new elites, denunciations of obsolete traditions and beliefs • Self-affirmation led to idealisation of difference and belief in a fixed identity proved to be xenophomic, negative and circular

  7. Barlet IV – 1980s • The 1980s saw a turn to “novelistic” type strategies by favouring events over action, avoiding explaining causes and instead presenting successions of events • Messages less explicit, neorealistic narratives that are not didactic or do not carry and overt political message • However, merely documenting Africa through film in this way (“fictionalised reporting”) or a realism without a clear directing hand

  8. Barlet V – 1990s • 1990s saw realism still dominant, but a shift from “fictionalised reporting” to a “realism that made the visible readable” • The more you show reality, the more you manipulate it • Depending on the veracity / believability of the characters rather than using them / turning them into symbols, avoiding didacticism and forcing the audience to think outside of the habitual box of representation

  9. Barlet VI – 2000 and beyond Post 2000 strategies: • Depict the complexities: The aim is not to dress a story in reality, but to grasp it in all its complexity, in short, to scramble the markers to depict Africa’s complexities and to move away from reductive simplifications.

  10. Barlet VII • Go beyond autochthonism. This presupposes letting one’s characters exist freely, for themselves, in all their singularities. It presupposes not making them the emblematic symbols of a cause

  11. Barlet II • Capture the present. The filmmakers show not pity, of course, which would be a slight on dignity, but a deep tenderness for their characters, an affection on the order of respect. Their behavior is never anecdotal: it is that of human reality.

  12. Barlet II Use the intimate to disorient. The purpose of this quasidocumentary approach is to affirm the human. The filmmaker manages to reveal what reality beholds by opening him or herself up to the intimate, far from grand discourses. Far from offering a globalized vision of Africa, the filmmaker affirms a here and now, a place and a country, a relationship..

  13. Barlet II Examine memory. This does not rule out the fact that slavery, colonialism, and apartheid still cast their shadow on thought and dignity. But rather than focusing on the torturers’ guilt and repentance, these films carry out a salutary examination of memory.

  14. Mahamat Saleh Haroun • Born in Chad 1963 • Studied filmaking at CLCF in France, where he now lives • Filmography • Bye Bye Africa (1999) • Abouna (2002) • Daratt (2006) • Sexe, gombo et beurre salé (2008) • A Screaming Man (2010) • Grisgris (2013)

  15. Mohamat Saleh Haroun • Quotation: • Because cinema, more than any other art, is above all national, a film-maker is often the mouth-piece of his community. Even if I have chosen to live in France, I cannot forget that part of me which is over there, those founding roots, that lively memory, in spite of exile. Consequently I shall fight for the visibility of my people.

  16. Film view: Daratt directed by Mahamat Saleh Haroun Pre-screening questions • What do you expect from a film set in 2000s in war-torn Chad? • What is your remedy to stop the neverending cycle of violent revolt – suppression – revenge ? • Audience is by force of circumstance European – citizens of Chad have almost no chance to see it; how does this influence the director? • Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys?

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