With Africa’s biggest film fest in Durban now a distant memory, some of the globe’s finest creatives may be seen in Venice. Amal Clooney, Idris Elba, Kanayo O. Kanayo, Lalisa Manobal, Maryam Touzani and Walter Moreira Salles were among the celebs likely in town. Sadly, the fest is showcasing only five films from Africa.
Next up will be Toronto (September 4-14). After that, cinephiles will move to Rio de Janeiro then Zurich and Hamburg. These are international fests, right? But they are not if they self-censor – avoiding some sacred holy cows – and the marginalis and, to paraphrase activist and historian Dr Hannah Elsisi, tokenise talent and stories from Africa and elsewhere.
For one, Toronto will showcase almost 300 films. Out of that are three films from Brazil and eight from Africa (or co-produced with Africans). Contrast that with nearly 20 British-only projects. Tolulope Itegboje-directed Bam Bam, Mother’s Love and Stitches are the only films with no overseas partners. If African talent weren’t underrated, why would Durban, Toronto, Venice and so on invite a trickle from here? African governments, the AU and creatives are silent. It is about time that international stages judge African films, as individuals, for their quality rather than searching for (a) time warp, or (b) cliché: death, despair and devastation. To misquote Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – why would Africa have a single, distorted, story?
Enter The Eyes of Ghana, a tribute to the legacy of Chris Tsui Hesse who turned 93 on recently. It was directed by Ben Proudfoot, a Canadian, and produced by Accra-based Anita Afonu, Hesse’s protégé, alongside Nana Adwoa Frimpong and Moses Bwayo. Some of the key moments that Hesse shot in West Africa would galvanise decolonisation. The library-like veteran swore by his trusted triplets: a camera, film and faith. A cinematographer of Kwame Nkrumah, for one, and a portal of history-rich reels, Hesse, with roles reversed, must be the most photographed photographer this month. In fact, today, Barack and Michelle Obama serve as executive producers of the storyteller’s story. It’s fitting.
In Calle Málaga, Moroccan author Maryam Touzami partnered with peers from France, Germany, etc. British-Nigerian artist Akinola Davies blends talent from Britain and Nigeria in My Father’s Shadow set in 1993, the year Sani Abachi took power in a coup. Two years later, Ken Saro-Wiwa was sacrificed for profits. Though universal, Davies’ story recalls Ken Wiwa’s In the Shadow of a Saint, a tribute to his martyred activist dad. Saro-Wiwa was, until the end, resolute in his stance against Shell’s devastation. Saro-Wiwa’s journey reminds us that profits shouldn’t define our heritage, or future, Davies’ film doesn’t give to holy cows.
Toronto’s deplorable attempt to mute The Road Between Us deflects from messages like filmmaker Sarah Friedland’s about Israel’s decades-long terror-backed occupation. The latest bout of the genocide has claimed no fewer than 60,000 lives (children account for a third). Palestine 36 won’t only take cinephiles, financiers and others to the bloody heart of pain but tackle historical erasure. Last month, the blockade of Gaza-bound aid ended dozens more lives, prompting the Roman Catholic Church’s Pope Leo XIV to demand that Israel stop the collective punishment of the people of Palestine.
But, with life imitating art, denialist voices blame everybody but the problem. For their part, thousands of industry players, cinephiles, and members of the public gathered in Venice on Saturday for an anti-genocide demonstration over the fest’s stance on Gaza.
A look at a few other films from Africa in Toronto takes us to the Zamo Mkhwanazi-directed Laundry, a junction of art, economics and family ties in apartheid South Africa. Laundry and My Father’s Shadow explore evil eras when Nigeria and its southernmost neighbour were oppressed by what Fela Kuti calls “Vagabonds In Power”. This prompts another question: where are the world-class doccies or feature films on Afrobeats? The genre, alongside Amapiano, is the ruler of choice. Ask any DJ in Accra, Berlin Lusaka or Osaka. Don’t forget London, New York and São Paulo. Not to give in to the lure of profits, let creatives tell Africa’s stories for posterity, not just for the financiers. Similarly, selectors and adjudicators must show that they are fair.
Thus, it was awful that none of the 12 doccies at the Durban International Film Festival was from West Africa. None from history-rich Egypt or its regime-change era, a fodder for academics. Under the baton of Jean-Gabriel Leynaud, a French director, Of Mud and Blood, was crowned the best doccie. It “explore[d] the harsh reality on the ground,” in DRC’s Numbi village say jurors. The win in Durban propels the doccie to the Oscar race. Congo’s foreign-funded wars are meant to sustain the looting of mineral wealth. In 1960, months before Patrice Lumumba’s assassination, Chris Tsui Hesse filmed the genesis of the Congo crisis (incited by Belgium). Meanwhile, Sudan: Remember Us, directed by Hind Meddeb, another Parisian, stood out for authentic, respectful and poetic delivery. Sudan, with East Africa’s own take of ChaChaCha and toyi-toyi, defied regional and religion biases.
For its part, Durban screened 92 films from 50 countries (but the host nation claimed the lion’s share). As with Toronto and Venice, Durban treats stories from the rest of Africa as an extra, smacking of tokenisation. The film world’s unspoken insistence on depicting Africa as a squalor and, on the other hand, perceiving stories of excellence as an exception is the easiest road to “normalised” exclusion.
So, where to? Durban’s top brass must take stock and widen the scope and, break free from peer pressure, quit the caricature games.
Andrea Vogel, who’s left the top office at the fest for a role as a curator at Cannes, is credited for deepening DIFF’s global reach. This includes bringing South Korean here. So, it’s doubly weird that Durban is thin on African films: from Algeria and Nigeria to Somalia and Mauritius. Thin on films from Ghana, Cabo Verde and Uganda. Having the AU, G20 or BRICS, even a symbols, has achieved little by way of fostering inclusion. Without redefinition and looking within, Durban could just prop clichés.
The fest isn’t the only site of schizophrenia and change of guard. A split in the ANC, dragging the party below 50% at the polls, has gifted South Africans with a polygamous regime. Former critics, now part of what they saw as cronyism, claim seats in a bloated Cabinet and demand special treatment. For millions, however, the living conditions remain precarious amid foetal alcohol syndrome disorder, drug abuse and other social ills.
These issues are more acute in South Africa, the world’s most unequal society. The foetal disorder – a self-perpetuating relic of colonial times when farmworkers were paid in ‘dop’ or alcohol – condemns scores of townships and farm dwellers to date.
Barring a few projects to preserve stories about the freedom struggle, films on that era remain few. Cross-border assassinations, and massacres in Gaborone, Maseru and Moçambique’s Matola, are a receding memory.
This is a lost opportunity especially given that film is a vehicle to showcase our art, culture and heritage.
2024-2025 marks 50 years of Kenneth Kaunda’s peacebuilding role in Southern Africa. Not long ago, the region swayed from colonialism to oppressive “adjustments” that in the 1970s reduced Zambia’s existence merely “to pay the IMF”, as Julius E Nyang’oro quoted KK in Beyond Structural Adjustment in Africa. This is a must-read for any creative, economist, journalist and others. It explains how any economy can, at Bretton Woods’ will, flip from rude health to the ICU.
Economic hardships and violent attacks notwithstanding, Kaunda didn’t give an inch in a region dominated by vagabonds: apartheid Pretoria’s tentacles extended to Namibia, Lisbon’s Marcello Caetano subjugated Angola and Moçambique, Ian Smith oppressed Zimbabwe. Zambia’s endless support earned her, along Tanzania, a status as the region’s cradle of liberation.
Switching to art, the memory of Zamrock, a piece of the land’s heritage, faded (only to be revived last year). But, the memory of plentiful personalities and their contributions is fading fast. Cue Alick Nkhata, a renowned Southern African musician. His 100th birthday was a blur. One of the region’s best pianists Abdullah Ibrahim turned 90 last year and it’ll soon be Gogo Esther Mahlangu’s. Alas, some creatives are too busy, chasing after money, to be creative. That could be why Hollywood’s imitations abound. Ironically, some governments, though custodians of Africa’s stories, have tuned out.
The White Lotus, a satire on wealth and privilege, buoyed bookings to Hawaii and Sicily. In Thailand’s Phuket and Samui, where the latest season was filmed, tourism chiefs are still praising it for bristling reservations, underscoring the fact that film and television buoy tourism.
Having produced Malawi’s finest feature films, Shemu Joyah has shown how it’s done but the Malawian government is contributing not a penny to any of his projects. No dime to showcase Malawi’s heritage or location. Not only were Joyah’s early films serial winners but they bolstered Malawi’s talent pool. Similarly, The Road to Sunrise collected plenty prizes and earned Joyah the best director award.
Looking forward, it’s high time African filmmakers embraced Brazil for co-productions rather than copy Hollywood. With broadcasters and distributors also shunning South America, the likes of DStv eagerly air imitations of “reality” shows like Mommy Club and Real Housewives though viewers and “cast” slam them as toxic.
In truth, Africa is replete with multifaceted real stories crying to be old. Look at Zambia. Archeologists cite Kalambo. For historians, it’s KK’s role in the decolonisation project. The story of Chris Hesse could inspire youngsters to, while seeking to influence the future, re-visit the stories of pioneers like Malawian fighter-lawyer couple Orton and Vera Chirwa. We need new films to celebrate Ethiopian-born Abebe Bikila who made history in the 1960s as the first Olympian to record back-to-back gold victories and Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson who, during her presidency, was showered with praises from home and beyond.
As we speak, the memory of Agostinho Neto’s path and those taken by Patrice Lumumba and Dag Hammarskjöld, assassinated in Lubumbashi and “accidentalised” in Ndola, are fading. So is Josina Machel’s. That young fighter dedicated her life to the struggle to free Moçambique. To the birthplace of the AU, where’s the story of Empress Taytu, a commander in Adwa war where Ethiopian and Italian armies had their first conflict? In telling Seretse Khama’s story, creatives tend to relegate his role in the founding of Botswana. In East Africa, people say “a person without culture is like a zebra without stripes”. Copy-and-paste projects will yield ‘stripelessness’. As we look ahead, Ayaa Gyasi’s works – enchanting and lucid yet profound and taking us to hitherto unthinkable (but thinkable) places – merit a walk in her footsteps.
Concerned parties are half-hearted in making people un-forget 19th-century anti-colonial resistance warriors in South Africa. As for the 20th century, there’s still no adaptation of Gaongalelwe Tiro’s poignant Parcel of Death on apartheid Pretoria’s assassination of student leader Onkgopotse Tiro.
Durban’s festival organisers tend to look North. However, in 2023, the winners’ roll call included Tenzi za Sinema. That documentary was directed by Ajabu Ajabu, a Dar-es-Salaam collective comprising Cece Mlay, Darragh Amelia, Gertrude Malizana and Jesse Gerard Mpango. As the latter once reflected, no matter how you look at it, there is no paucity of stories from the continent.
Walking down the esplanade with Joyah, the filmmaker I once met in Durban, I am transported to the tale of Rev. John Chilembwe, a liberation theologian assassinated by British soldiers in 1915. Sadly, funding has stalled the pensive Joyah work, of more than a decade, to bring to life Chilembwe. Curiously, resources – even for veterans with impressive CVs and a long record – are hard to come by.
It is the end of the day as Joyah and I venture south as the sun settles west. The esplanade is packed with gamboling beach goers. The youngsters’ fashion sense recalls music videos from the USA. Such sights recall how some Southern African storytellers tell their stories: imitate Hollywood.
But, that’s not the end of the story. There remain too many pieces. Authenticity. Inclusion. Confronted by Malawi’s talent deficit, now a thing of the past, Joyah turned to Nigeria for mass training. Today, Malawi has a film industry to speak and now claims nominations or wins at the African Movie Academy Awards, the Oscars, for two. Today, West Africans hire Malawian actors. Indeed, intra-continental partnerships are not only practical but beneficial for all. Collaborations and co-productions enable African nations to feed off each other’s strengths: talent, location, infrastructure and expertise.
By Shoks Mnisi Mzolo
The author is a roving storyteller with a background in arts & culture and financial journalism. He also works as an independent researcher and is an avid traveler.
Source: ghanabusinessnews.com
