Adapted from my article "Reflections on Cinema Criticism and African Women and Film Criticism" in Feminist Africa 16 African Feminist Engagements with Film. Issue 16: July 2012
In the intriguing “Le dit du cinéma africain” (A Tale of African Cinema) by the inimitable storyteller of the African griot oral tradition, Amadou Hampâté Bâ, published in 1967, is the extraordinary story of Kadidja Pâté, his mother. Her fascinating and edifying encounter with early cinema provides a unique introduction to research on African women and film criticism.
Hampâté Bâ recalls as an eight-year-old, the first film screening held in his native village Bandiagara, Mali in 1908. The local colonial governor had ordered the religious leaders of the village to attend a film screening, and concerned about this “satanic ghost ready to trick the true believer”, they gathered to find a way to sabotage the event. Though she was not present at the screening, Kadidja Pâté, a devout Muslim, embraced this collective belief. However, in 1934, while still under the 1908 interdiction of the marabouts of Bandiagara, though to please her son, she accompanied him and his wife to the movie theatre.
Research on early cinema and spectatorship of that era underscores the near-universal response of amazement and wonder in the first decades of the birth of cinema. Audiences in both westernized and non-western societies experienced the stunning effect of this new technology. Hence, it is not surprising that even the learned leaders of the small village of Bandiagara, Mali had awed reactions, encouraging their extant opposition to the veneration of images under Islam. At the same time that Hampâté Bâ presents an introduction to early African experiences in cinema, his story also explores the relations of power between coloniser and Africa at the site of the image and spectatorship, and the negotiation of endogenous (religious) beliefs with external cultural forms.
The most intriguing aspect of the story and a useful example for my work, is the absolute transformation of Kadidja Pâté, from a young woman who in 1908 accepted the elders’ belief that cinema was evil, to a mature woman in 1934, who had evolved into an independent thinker critically engaging its possibilities. In this article, Kadidja Pâté serves as a conduit of sorts to the emergence of an African women’s cinematic gaze; demonstrating her ability to interpret, discern and demystify the moving images of her time, a time when cinema was just developing and taking shape. When Hampâte Bâ’s story begins, a mere decade and a half had passed since the first public screenings of the moving images in the 1890s in Europe and North America, at the time of Kadidja Pâté’s first encounter with cinema in 1934, the sound era had just emerged. Though an untrained spectator, she was able to draw lessons and benefit from her first experience at the movie theatre. Her interpretation of the screen as metaphor, her ability to observe, differentiate, compare— likening the screen to an intermediary between the Maker and the viewer, is indicative of a perceptive cultural reader able “to develop [her] own beliefs into firm ideas and not through passive conformity.” Her reflection, I would venture to say, is the earliest evidence of an African woman’s experience of cinema.
Hence drawing from Kadidja Pâté’s first cinematic encounter with the moving image is a manner to explore the tenets of an African woman’s cinema criticism and its application of an African cinematic practice that emerged some twenty years later in the 1950s. It is highly significant to have an oral testimony transported into text of such a historical event that occurred more than 75 years ago. It is also significant that it has not elicited much scholarly interest, although this may be due to its obscurity—tucked away as the introductory text of a French-language catalogue on ethnographical films on Africa originally published by UNESCO in 1955. Pâté’s testimony is vital to the ongoing efforts to forge an African perspective on the image in general and African cinematic representation in particular. While it would be twenty years after Kadidja Pâté’s 1934 cinematic encounter before the emergence of an African cinematic practice, and thirty years before an African would direct a film on the continent, the span widens when considering an African engagement with film criticism, although Paulin Soumanou Vieyra pioneers a historiography of African cinema in the late 1960s. The lack of a veritable foundation within which to debate, discuss, exchange discourse and forge a theoretical framework endogenous to African cinematic realities has been an ongoing concern since the creation of a continental cinema infrastructure in the 1960s.
Continuing the work of Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, also known as the father of African film criticism and history, Burkinabé film critic Clément Tapsoba (1995) asserts that African film criticism is an intermediary between the public and the filmmaker, and hence it should first be an encounter with the people to whom it informs, guides, and enlightens, which in return provides the necessary feedback to the filmmakers. Film criticism must reveal not only multi-layered meaning to the public, but it must also find the most appropriate technique for the creation of meaning. Influenced by Vieyra’s (1990) work on oral tradition and film production, Tapsoba (1995) asserts that evolving from a culture of orality, African filmmakers have always reflected the close links between their film narratives and traditional stories. However, the new demands of cinema on the one hand and the changes in attitude of the African public as a result of foreign images on the other, are factors that call for a new approach to African cinema for both the filmmaker and for film criticism. He notes that increasingly, African filmmakers must combine the social function of their work with the aspect of entertainment, while still retaining its own identity, as the preservation of identity is the fundamental challenge they face confronted with the tendency toward the standardization of world cinema by Hollywood. Hence, he insists that African film criticism must be endogenous and inward looking. He reminds us of the reflections of Vieyra: “criticism is born with the object that it critiques. It develops and is also strengthened in time because the art evolves, people become more knowledgeable and thus more demanding.” Similarly, Imunga Ivanga (2005), Gabonese filmmaker and director of the Gabonese National Centre of Cinema, paraphrases Cheikh Anta Diop as he urges Africans to be the ones “to generate their own theoretical, conceptual, psychological, psychoanalytical, and aesthetic language and categories, which will not be indebted neither to Oedipus or Electra.”
Togolese Anne-Laure Folly Reimann (2000) follows this reasoning vis-à- vis her view of the role of African cinema whose endeavor is to restore its values within a thought system that can no longer survive in this era unless it is disseminated beyond its borders. Africa has alternative values that it must learn to impart and exchange with others. According to her: “the world is evolving in such a way that we will interchange with each other no matter what. Everything is interconnected, and if we express our culture, the logic of the system is such that it will be shared elsewhere as well.”
These irrefutable conclusions draw attention to what Tapsoba views as the major obstacles in the development of an endogenous African cinema criticism: the shortage of film production, the lack of distribution and venues for exhibition and hence an absence of an African public to view African films. Tapsoba expresses his concern at a growing tendency towards western hegemony of African cinema criticism. In many cases western critics and scholars have access to African films before the African critics and the African public and hence from this privileged position assume the right to define, categorize and assign meaning, appropriating an important part of African cultural heritage. Imunga Ivanga (2005) has other concerns that are equally compelling. He poses important questions: what is film criticism? What purpose does it serve? And moreover, should it serve a purpose? According to him, the educational aspect that can result from these questions may be of interest to an African public that has not yet entirely integrated reading and writing in its traditions. While paradoxically, radio, television and film can be defined as constituents of neo-orality as they have continued success among the African population. The challenge is that access to these reflections must often pass through the written word, and thus it is necessary to create places of debate that would take this constraint into account.
It is for these same reasons that Tsitsi Dangarembga (1997) finds filmmaking more applicable to the African context than literature, as films reach a wider public. Similarly, she observes that “to understand a film you don’t have to be educated to the same extent where you do when you have to pick up a book.” Since she writes in English she must take into account that all Zimbabweans do not read in English, “whereas even if a film is in English, I think if it is made well enough, a person can probably understand what is going on.” Taking this consideration into account, Women Filmmakers of Zimbabwe (WFOZ), initiated outreach to remote regions in Zimbabwe, using film as a means to engage with the messages in the films so that the young women especially, may recognize, examine and discover possible solutions to the problems that affect them. Continuing Imunga Ivanga’s (2005) query on the role of film criticism: For whom is African film criticism intended? Who are the intended viewers of African films? As African films are notoriously inaccessible on the continent, they are invisible to African audiences. And thus, asks Imunga Ivanga: Who sees? Who reads? Who sees what? Who reads what? And under what conditions?
If the notion of an African gaze continues to concern African filmmakers and critics it is because it is imperative to assert an African specificity facing a standardized universalism, not only in the form of added testimonials attesting to its existence, but more importantly as an agent of a world that has inscribed it no place on the world map. In the same way, Folly Reimann (2000) asserts that power comes from those who say things. There is a widespread attitude that if one does not express oneself, has nothing to say, then one does not exist; and that the problem is that culturally speaking, Africa does not say things. That there is the perception that what is important is not told, or is expressed discreetly, or is told only to one another, by word-of-mouth. She perceives that the attitude among Africans is that a culture that exposes itself disintegrates, agreeing that in some ways it may be true, that the notion of the total diffusion of something corresponds to losing something of one’s essence. Echoing Vieyra’s reflections above, Folly Reimann observes that changes occur in the West and then are reproduced and diffused. And through this diffusion, a mutation occurs. These notions and values are transmitted elsewhere, which are then modified and changed by the receiver and hence these values evolve. Whereas in African societies, these values once transmitted, are kept and applied throughout one’s life. “I think that we are a bit lost in our international discourse to the extent that we no longer exist. Now we must say something.”
What then do African women say? What is an African woman’s cinematic voice? How do they speak through film? How do they express their vision to their societies and to the world? How do they inscribe their écriture into their work? What are the issues related to the creation of an African women’s film criticism? What are the elements needed to develop it? Why is it important that it be endogenous—that African women themselves formulate the theories and discourse? How would this discourse be encouraged and sustained beyond the film festival forums and occasional conferences and meetings that have given it voice? How can film production be enhanced in order to build a collection of quality works? How can an endogenous African women cinema studies be reconciled with the dominance of western feminist film criticism that interprets female representation and women’s filmmaking practice within western canons and paradigms? Under what conditions are African women able to forge a critique that is meaningful to their experiences? Folly Reimann (2000) proposes an African woman’s perspective as an alternative discourse as “their perspective does not simply analyse things; they live them.” Aminata Ouedraogo (2000) has noted that while there is an under-representation of African women in film criticism involving written works; on the other hand, there is a visible presence of women at film debates at film festivals, film forums and ciné-clubs on the continent. Her assertion underscores the arguments by Tapsoba and Vieyra, that the role of criticism is to directly engage the public, who in turn become more knowledgeable and discerning.
During my work on the African women in cinema project that culminated with the Sisters of the Screen book and film, many of the women were asked about their perspectives on African women cinema criticism, feminist perspectives on cinema, the African female gaze, and female sensibility. Since the publication of the book in 2000, I have continued interviewing women, collecting their perspectives along the way and have witnessed the emergence of a cadre of African women doing advanced study and research and showing increased interest in the area of cinema studies.
Many African women come to cinema with other professional experiences, with advanced academic degrees, or emerge from other disciplines such as visual arts, theatre, journalism, literature, anthropology, sociology, psychology, museum studies, art history, architecture, education, geography, communication theory, development studies, law, medicine, international relations, political science, and business. They come increasingly from backgrounds in film theory and criticism, all of which strengthen their position to theorize about their own work and expectations in terms of audience reception and efforts toward consciousness raising. One need only read interviews and artistic statements and transcripts of colloquia and keynote addresses to see the depth of critical engagement with their films and African films in general, as well as their capacity to make broader connections within an array of issues. Though not necessarily as a searchable collection or ensemble that names it a body of work, increasingly there is scholarship and documentation on which they can build. The intersection of theory and practice is, in fact, the methodology among African women, rather than the academic criticism and study that is the tendency elsewhere. On-the-ground, community-based issues are important to African women filmmakers rather than theory for theory’s sake, criticism for the sake of criticism. They continue to create cinematic institutions and initiatives such as film festivals, film organizations, newsletters, ciné-clubs, pitching forums, production companies and hence are well positioned to critically engage with the films and the audiences who view them.
African women have held key positions in film institutions and in government ministries focusing on culture, education and women, where they can influence policies and make decisions on state, continental and international levels. The initiatives and the women who have forged and sustained them, attest to the scope and breadth of possibilities in the development of an endogenous African women’s cinema criticism capable of embracing the plurality of the continent and drawing directly from its cinematic realities.
What remains important are all the lessons learned in the ongoing growth of African women cinema studies and criticism, and the value of documenting the cinematic experiences of African women from their perspective, told and written in their own voices. Imbedded in this discourse is also my idea of a sisterhood through cinema, where language is not a barrier, where geography is not an impediment, and where the screen becomes the meeting point for all the stakeholders: directors, producers, actors, festival organizers, critics, and audiences. And drawing from the wisdom of Kadidja Pâté, the screen becomes the intermediary through which the moving image is viewed, interpreted and understood.
References
Bâ, Amadou Hampâté. 1967. “Le dit du cinéma africain”, Films ethnographiques sur l’Afrique noire. Paris: UNESCO.
Bulane-Hopa, Seipati. 2009. FEPACI Newsletter Nl01-09-09. Link no longer active at http://www.fepaci-film.org/Newsletter/Nl01-09-09-9.html
Dangarembga, Tsitsi. 1997. Interview with the author for the African Women in Cinema Project.
Folly Reimman, Anne-Laure. 2000. Sisters of the Screen: Women of Africa on Film, Video and Television, Beti Ellerson. New Jersey: Africa World Press.
Ivanga, Imunga. 2005. “Autant en emporte la critique.” Afriques 50: Singularités d’un cinema pluriel. Paris: L’Harmattan.
Ouedraogo, Aminata. 2000. Sisters of the Screen: Women of Africa on Film, Video and Television, Beti Ellerson. New Jersey: Africa World Press.
Sama, Emmanuel. 1992. “Le cinéma au féminin sort ses griffes, ‘Un certain matin’ avec Régina Fanta Nacro,” Amina 265: 22-21.
Tapsoba, Clément. 1995. “De l’orientation de la critique du cinéma africain”. L’Afrique et le Centenaire du Cinéma/Africa and the Centenary of Cinema. Fepaci Federation Panafricaine des Cinéastes/Panafrican Federation of Filmmakers. Paris: Présence Africaine.
Vieyra, Paulin Soumanou. 1990. Reflexions d’un cineaste africain. Brussels: Editions OCIC.
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