Last Fall, our former archivist Mary Hueslbeck put together a display at the IU Cinema featuring a collection of toys and action figures of black movie stars.
It’s a pretty interesting collection, and reminds me how action figures and toys have the Janus-like quality of being both fun (I had a great time popping Jim West off of his saddle), and how they are also objects of serious sociological consideration (why is Samuel Jackson noticeably lighter as Mace Windu for preschoolers, and noticeably darker for adults as Shaft?).
Below, some of our selections (click Continue Reading below for more photos and figures).
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Afro-Vietnamese Orphans Tell Their Stories in ‘Indochina: Traces of a Mother’
A new(er) documentary film by Idrissou Mora-Kpai follows the stories of Afro-Vietnamese orphans born of Vietnamese mothers and West African fathers – tirailleurs sénégalais – brought by the French to fight la sale guerre, mostly in today’s Viet Nam. The synopsis:
Through the story of Christophe, a 58-year-old Afro-Vietnamese man, the film reveals the little known history of African colonial soldiers enlisted to fight for the French in Indochina. Christophe was one of seven Afro-Vietnamese orphans adopted by one of those soldiers when he returned to Benin after the war. The film explores the long lasting impact of bringing together two populations who previously had no ties and sheds light on a frequent practice within colonial history, that of using one colonized people to repress the independence claims of another colonized people.
Told in Vietnam and Benin, the film gives space for the grown Afro-Vietnamese orphans to tell their stories, but also to explore the contradictions of the colonial order.
“The French sent us to fight their war for no good reason,” remarks one veteran in the trailer. “It was their enemy, not ours.”
You can see the full trailer here.
The French use of colonized peoples as soldiers has been the subject of feature length historical fiction before – notably in Ousmane Sembene’s Camp de Thiaroye (1988) – about a group of soldiers massacred by the French after fighting for France – and Rachid Bouchareb’s Days of Glory (2006) – about Algerian men who fought the Nazis in France. Now, a documentary lens has been brought to the phenomenon.
George Orwell, too, wrote about the tirailleurs sénégalais in his essay Marrakech. With a tone that betrays Orwell’s own prejudices, he describes a column of Senegalese soldiers on the march, and reflects:
But there is one thought which every white man (and in this connection it doesn’t matter twopence if he calls himself a Socialist) thinks when he sees a black army marching past. “How much longer can we go on kidding these people? How long before they turn their guns in the other direction?”
Isn’t it great to see cameras turned in the other direction?
The Pulse: What about Language in Nigerian Cinema?
In The Pulse, our new feature section, we’ll connect different voices on topics in Black Film. We’ll ask a question, frame it, and then connect with some of the many modes of answering that question. In this first installation, we’ll look at the conversation about language in Nigerian Cinema.
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Language does many things in cinema. It produces, packages, and reflects culture. It validates and sanctions particular tongues. It denotes an audience and creates revenue streams. And among many other things, it plays.
In Nigeria, whose 158 million citizens speak some 500 languages, the film industry puts out 1,000 to 2,000 films a year. A global audience estimated in the hundreds of millions (if not more) watches these films, which are dubbed, subtitled, or already in an accessible language (mostly, but not always, English).
What matters, then, about language in Nigerian cinema?
The national dialogue on films in indigenous languages –from online messageboards to newspaper editorials to facebook – is particularly robust these days, due in no small part to the visibility of 2011’s 5th Festival of Indigenous African Language Films. This, too, against a trend of de-Anglicization of Nigerian films in recent years.
“While Nigeria has been busy discussing how to decolonize television screens for the past 60 years, the Nollywood industry has done so in less than 30 years, yet the success of the industry still has its own problems that need to be carefully articulated, since it bears on our very being as people,” said Dr. Onookome Okome in a presentation at the festival, according to The Sun.
Not that the process has been homogenous and weighted evenly, as languages in Nigerian films do not mirror Nigeria’s linguistic composition[i].
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Into the Archive: Exploring the Jessie Maple Collection
Not enough people, it seems, are aware of Jessie Maple, given her contributions to black cinema. So for those who aren’t familiar, an introduction from Diane Tucker:
Jessie Maple is included in nearly every who’s who of film except the Registry. Will is the first post civil rights feature-length film produced by an African-American woman. (Hollywood guilds are more than 80% white.) Maple’s film received the Special Merit Award at the Athens International Film Festival.
And there’s much more.
In 1974, she became the first black woman to join the International Photographers of Motion Picture & Television Union (except that ‘became’ is a tame verb to use, given the trials and obstacles to joining the union, including lawsuits against major New York TV stations, pushback from the industry, and the weightiness of ‘being the first’). She recorded the experience in her book How to Become a Union Camerawoman (more on that below).
In 1982, she founded 20 West, Home of Black Cinema in Harlem as a venue to show films by independent and black filmmakers to the public.
All the while, she was producing content, often with her husband Leroy Patton, with whom she founded LJ Productions in 1974. She produced two feature length films (Twice as Nice was her second in 1988), and several documentaries (Methadone: Wonder Drug or Evil Spirit and Black Economic Power: Reality or Fantasy among her selections).
New York Women in Film and Television called Maple’s work “a forerunner of the independent, minority filmmaking that would cultivate directors like Spike Lee, Charles Burnett, Leslie Harris and Lee Daniels.”
In 2005, Maple donated her personal collection to the BFC/A, and we maintain an extensive collection of her films and logbooks, photos and news clippings, correspondences and more. We’ve gathered a sampling below to try and share some of Jessie Maple and her story.
[click ‘Continue Reading’ after the first item to see the rest; click on each photo for a larger image).
The February 1976 Ebony magazine (newstand price:$1) includes a feature on Jessie Maple. It tells the story of Maple’s struggles to break into the Cinematrogphers Union and of her courtship with her husband, Leroy Patton. The article is written 5 years before the release of Will, though it mentions the project. Between the timbre of a 1970s Ebony issue (“What Happened to the Black Revolutionaries?” asks one title piece, among ads for a range of products), the piece details Maple’s work and determination in a particular type of biographical voice:
Like other grown-ups among her four brothers and seven sisters, Jessie has spent all of her adult years in the north, but she retains a deceptively Southern manner. And when though the quiet drawl, infectious giggle and unassuming air there appears a hard-nosed, ambitious professional, it can come as a surprise.
This issue, as well as other issues of Ebony and many other magazines, can be accessed here.
(more…)Focus on Afro & Indigenous Film with Showcase in Lima
The 6th annual International Indigenous and Afro-descendant Film Showcase and Awards took place last week in Lima, Peru. The Anaconda Prize – the event’s top award – went to the Guatemalan film El oro o la vida (Gold for Life).
Hosted by Susana Baca (Afro-Peruvian singer and Minister of Culture), the event expanded this year to 12 films highlighting the experiences of Indigenous and African peoples from the Chaco to the Caribbean.
On the theme ‘The Image of All Peoples,’ two documentaries focused specifically on afrodescendientes. Soy Afro (I Am Afro) offers a view of life and how identity and diversity is constructed in Bolivia.
The other documentary, Los caminos del grupo Elegguá (Becoming Elegguá), told the story of the folk music group Femenino Elegguá and the different journeys the group members have travelled to become the face of Afro-Venezuelan music. No trailer is available online, but you can see the group performing here and here.
The festival puts strong emphasis on indigenous and afro-descendant authorship of film.
“Indigenous people are behind the camera as well; they are creators and producers of images, and that marks an important conceptual difference,” said Roger Rumrill, a member of the Center for Indigenous Cultures of Peru, in an interview with CCE Lima.
“It is to not be curious or exotic objects, but to be creators of images in line their identities and cultures.”
There’s no word yet on whether Soy Afro or Los caminos del grupo Elegguá will be available in English, but we will keep our eyes open.
Images of Black Women Festival Highlights ‘Diversity in the Diaspora’
Participants of the 8th Anniversary Images of Black Women Film Festival, in London from April 13th to 15th, will be taken from Canada to Zimbabwe (via Gaudeloupe) on screen, as the film festival focuses this year illustrating diversity of films about/by black women across the diaspora.
In addition to film screenings, other events consider the positioning of figure of the black woman (In a year of performances by Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer, where does the Black Actress go next?), sustaining the festival’s charter to “celebrate and promote women of African Descent in cinema.”
An American double bill kicks off the festival – Jessie Owens by Laurens Grant and Yelling at the Sky by Victoria Mahoney – followed by Saturday’s Caribbean Mix and Sunday’s Double Bill by African Women Filmmakers. The program is available here.
Celebrating TransAfrican Independence Day: ‘One Night in Brooklyn’
One Night in Brooklyn, a feature film project written and directed by Esosa Edosomwan, will tell the story about a group of bohemian Brooklynites who declare a TransAfrican Independence Day and throw a party to celebrate.
Edosomwan, wanting to make a film in the vein of House Party (1990), School Daze (1988), and A Different World (1987) – a vein she saw missing of late – began writing the script for “our coming of age story, about a group of educated post college grads growing into their adulthood” in 2008.
TransAfricanness is central to the project. “I really wanted to create something that showed a diverse group of brown skinned people, not just monolithic black people but the people I know in my real life,” says Edosomwan in the Indiegogo trailer, “So we have a Nigerian-American, a girl who is Ethiopian-American, a girl from New Orleans who survived Hurricane Katrina, and a Dominican guy. Everyone’s very specific and has specific culture and flavor, and that’s a huge part of why I created One Night in Brooklyn.”
The filmmakers are hoping to go into full production in July 2012, and have kicked off a fundraising effort in February to meet this goal. You can also keep up with the film on their facebook page and on twitter.
This is the first feature film project by Edosomwan, who has directed the short films Simple As Blk and White (2008) as well as 50 Bucks in Argentina (2007).
Latino Film Festival & Conference at Indiana University
The Latino Film Festival and Conference – a packed three days of film, discussion, and visiting directors and writers – comes to IU from the 5th to the 7th of April.
The festival kicks off with the dystopian border tale Sleep Dealer (2008) and Blacktino (2011), a “dark teen comedy about an overweight half-black, half-latino nerd.” Sleep Dealer director Alex Rivera will host a Q&A after his film.
Cuban cinema will leave its mark on the festival with the pairing of Memories of Underdevelopment (1968) and Memories of Overdevelopment (2010) [this five minute trailer is stunning], both based of works by Cuban novelist Edmundo Desnoes, which follow a panel discussion on Cuban cinema in the U.S. Both Desnoes and Memories of Overdevelopment director Miguel Coyula will be present for a Q&A after their films.
Two other panel discussions will focus on Queer Studies and Latina/o filmmaking as well as migration, labor, and legal status. Charles Ramirez Berg, of the University of Texas, Austin, will deliver the keynote address Saturday afternoon.
Gun Hill Road (2011) director Rashaad Ernesto Green will be the third director at the festival, for a Q&A after his film.
The BFC/A is one of fifteen entities sponsoring the event, and the screening of Zoot Suit (1981) will be from an archival copy in the BFC/A.
Here is the full schedule for the festival. All events are free, but ticketed.
‘Worlds of Ousmane Sembène’ in Miami University’s Africana Film Festival
The films and legacy of Ousmane Sembène will be the focus of the 2nd Africana Film Festival at Miami University (Ohio).
In addition to refocusing attention on the films of Sembène, the festival “is meant to serve both as an opportunity to open up new inroads in the criticism of Ousmane Sembène’s artistic achievement and address the broader question of the place of African artistic creation in the broader context of European and American post-war movements,” according to Dr. Babacar Camara, the convener of the festival.
Six different films will be screened over three days at Miami’s Middletown, Hamilton, and Oxford campuses including La Noire de… (1966), Camp de Thiaroye (1989), and Moolade (2004).
Additionally, three roundtable discussions will focus the festival on the varied realms of Sembène’s filmmaking. “Tributes and criticisms have focused on his political commitment alone. This conference seeks to reverse this tendency by addressing the various worlds of Sembène,” said Camara.
“In 2003, Sembène said ‘I will never kneel. I have a job to do and no one assigned it to me. I need to talk to my people and that, I cannot do in hiding.’ In 2007, Sembène passed away, the year of Miami’s 1st Africana Film Festival. I immediately felt like honoring this monument of African cinema.”
Below, the schedule for the festival:
In the meantime, enjoy the Sembène related links:
- Films written and directed by Ousmane Sembene (with trailers)
- ‘A Filmmaker Who Found Africa’s Voice’ – NY Times piece by A.O. Scott
- Sembène Ousmane, an appreciation by Mamadou Diang (includes last recorded interview)
- Sembène! A documentary project by Samba Gadjigo & Jason Silverman
- Sembène: The Making of African Cinema (trailer) by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o & Manthia Diawara (1993)
New Directions in African Cinema Series: March 8 – 29
This week kicks off a collaboration between the BFC/A and Graduate Students in African Studies at IU. We will be hosting a film series featuring contemporary films by African filmmakers; the series will take place Thursday evenings in March.
3/8 AFRICAN/AMERICAN? Three short films about reconciling African and American identities. Screening followed by a discussion with three African graduate students.
3/22 SCI-FI FLICKS Two short films from Kenya & South Africa that imagine distinct dystopias.
3/29 AFRICAN ACTION Recent Congolese feature-length hit Viva Riva. Post-screening discussion led by visiting professor Dr. Walton Muyumba (AAADS).
All the screenings will take place at 7:00 pm at the Black Film Center/Archive and will be followed by moderated discussions.