MONDAY'S GIRLS (1993, Nigeria, 50 min.), directed by Ngozi Onwurah. In English and in Waikiriki with English subtitles.

DELUGE (1995, USA and Ethiopia, 60 min.), directed by Salem Mekuria. In English and Amharic with English subtitles.

Please answer the following questions, and do in-depth answers to three of them. Please bring in references to the interviews with the directors when possible and appropriate.

1. Discuss the titles of these two films. To what extent does each title capture the essence of its film?

2. Both films tell their "stories" by means of a voice-over narrator. How do the narrators of the two films differ? How do these differences affect the overall feel of the two films?

3. Discuss the setting of Monday's Girls. The film is set in an island community at the mouth of the Niger River in Nigeria, among the Waikiriki people. What do you notice about this world, this community? Describe it.

4. Now do the same for the world of Deluge--natural setting and social setting.

5. The primary "characters" of Monday's Girls are Florence (who undergoes the entire iria initiation ritural) and Azikiwe (who does not). Compare these two young women.

6. Who are the main "characters" of Deluge? What do we come to learn about them over the course of the film?

7. Describe the iria ceremony in Monday's Girls--the preparation, "ticketing" inspection, the "fattening rooms," the copper impala rings, the final parade, including the gender roles of the observers and participants. What is the purpose of this ceremony, and what is your reaction to it?

8. Why do you think Ngozi Onwurah included the Azikiwe story? Do you find that it detracts from the focus on the young women who do go through the ritual?

9. At the end of Monday's Girls, Azikiwe, now back in the city, states "There are some traditions people should forget." Do you agree with her with respect to this ritual? Why or why not?

10. Based on what you've read and what you feel from the film, to what extent would you say that Monday's Girls was affected by its BBC (i.e., European) funding?

11. Deluge opens and closes with the director at her editing table. This creates a film that feels very different than Monday's Girls, no? Discuss the director's presence in Deluge.

12. Overall, what are some of the ways in which these two films are similar in purpose and technique, and what are some of the ways in which they differ?

13. Think more specifically about the way that music is used in the two films, and for what purpose. How much soundtrack music do you find in Monday's Girls? How much source music? How about for Deluge? Why the difference?

14. If you look closely at Deluge, you'll see the familiar structural pattern of status quo/disruption/increasing conflict/restoration or establishment of new status quo. How exactly does the pattern play itself out in this film?

15. Based on Deluge, what would you say are the lessons to be learned from the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selasse in 1974, the establishment of the Derg and the subsequent terror, the conduct and fate of the young idealists, the influence of Cold War politics, etc.? Also, would you say that Mekuria's use of her own personal story obscures the more important politico-historical lessons to be learned, or does it enhance them?

16. Mekuria describes a period in history that was exceptionally brutal and violent. How does she depict that violence? Would you have rather seen her depict the violence differently? What do you think of her choices?

17. Ngozi Onwurah is a Nigerian woman who was mainly raised and educated in England; Salem Mekuria was raised in Ethiopia but had left the country before the "deluge" occurred and remains an expatriate. Both are thus in a sense both insiders and outsiders with respect to the events depicted in the two films. Do you see any significance in their status as insiders/outsiders for their films?

18. These are both films by women directors. To what extent are these films marked/shaped by their having been made created by women?

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