IFFR: Where is Africa Opening Night

I am doing this while standing in the Press Centre of the International Film Festival. So I will be quick, and vaguely coherent. Tonight the Where is Africa component of the festival opens. As Alice Smits and Lee Ellickson, writing on the IFFR website put it…

When asked ‘Where is Africa?’, the answer might be ‘Which Africa?’ It goes without saying that this vast continent embodies a plurality of Africas with a wide diversity of peoples, cultures, histories, languages. It has always been difficult to generalize about Africa yet the term Africa is often offered to conjure something specific: namely Sub-Saharan or black Africa.

At an international film festival, the question can be taken to mean ‘Where is Africa in the programme?’ Year after year, Africa is the most underrepresented region. But we can also interpret the question as ‘Where can African cinema be found in Africa these days; where is it at?’ The ironic answer is that by and large African cinema is not found in Africa. Many African countries do not have an operating cinema at all and those that did often have seen them transformed into more lucrative churches, while the few remaining theatres mainly screen Hollywood blockbusters. Even in countries with film festivals, one discovers few screenings of African films outside those events. On the production side much of African cinema today is made by film makers who have been trained and live abroad, while on the continent their work faces a lack of exhibitors and distribution. In much of Africa, film makers confront television stations and theatres that expect them to pay for showing their films, governments who give increasingly less support, and a docile public now well indoctrinated in the aesthetics of Nigerian video soaps and sensational action films.

I will be at the opening tonight and the for the next four nights of the “where is Africa’ programme. Over the next few days I mean to have conversations with a variety of industry players, particularly in relation to Africa and ‘the state of Film in Africa.’ Do watch this space for some of the places where the pieces I write will end up (I can tell you about KenyaImagine for sure) and also to engage in any conversations that might emerge as I wind up my Rotterdam experience.

Where is Africa: Concert 1- Opening Night

Schouwburg Grote Zaal, February 2, 19:15- 21\;23

Opening with performances by Percussion Discussion Afrika and a performance by Jean Luc Raharimanana and Tao Ravao of Madagascar.

Follow me on Twitter for more updates from my side of the festival

 



One Response to “IFFR: Where is Africa Opening Night”

1. Tweets that mention IFFR: Where is Africa Opening Night | The Black Campaign -- Topsy.com says:

   February 7, 2010 at 16:29

   [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Abiyomi Kofi, sciculturist, POTASH, MATATHIA, MATATHIA and others. MATATHIA said: Where is Africa? http://ow.ly/12UEl Opens Tonight At the IFFR. Watch this space for updates, thoughts and interviews #IFFR [...]