International Studies 198 - Studies in African Film

Tues/Thurs 8 p.m.

Miller 105

Michael Dembrow, Instructor

June 20 YAABA/THE GRANDMOTHER (1989, Burkina Faso, 90 min.), directed by Idrissa Ouedraogo. Set in a timeless West African village, this is the story of two children, Bila and Nopoko, and an elderly woman who is ostracized by the villagers, who suspect her of being a witch. Unlike their elders, the children refuse to abandon her. Highly acclaimed at the Cannes Film Festival when it came out in 1989, Yaaba remains one of the continent's greatest films. Ouedraogo has gone on to become one of Africa's most prolific and accomplished directors. In Moré with English subtitles.

June 22 XALA (Senegal, 1974, 123 min.), directed by Ousmane Sembène. When the French leave Senegal, power is passed to the Senegalese. But do the French ever really leave? Is the new system any better than the old? This film tells the story of one of the new Senegalese business leaders, a former revolutionary who chooses to crown his new success with a third wife, only to find that someone has given him the "xala," the curse of impotence. Xala is a biting satire by Ousmane Sembène, the "Father of African Film," and author of God's Bits of Wood, along with numerous other novels. In Wolof and French with English subtitles.

June 27 ZAN BOKO (Burkina Faso, 1988, 94 min.), directed by Gaston Kaboré. When the ancestral village of a rural African family becomes swallowed up within the urban boundaries of the expanding city, their traditions and values come into conflict with those of their modern urban neighbors. The family's interests are defended by a crusading journalist, whose television coverage turns the conflict between neighbors into a political attack on the government's corruption and policies of urbanization and censorship. But to what end? In Moré with English subtitles.

June 29 KEITA: THE HERITAGE OF THE GRIOT (Burkina Faso, 1995, 94 min.), directed by Dany Kouyaté. Keita creates a unique world where the West Africa of the 13th Century Sundiata Epic and the West Africa of today co-exist and interpenetrate. The epic tells the story of Sundiata Keita, the man responsible for creating the great trading empire of Mali. A contemporary boy, Mabo Keita, presumably the distant descendant of the great king, becomes wrapped up in the epic when an old griot (traditional bard) comes to teach him his heritage. The epic and the contemporary story then become intertwined. Mabo finds himself torn between his modern Western studies and the lessons taught by the griots. In Jula and French with English subtitles.

July 6 PIÈCES D'IDENTITÉS / I.D. (1998, Congo/Belgium, 94 min.), directed by Mweze Ngangura. By the director of the crowdpleasing La Vie Est Belle (1987), this film won the grand prize at FESPACO in 1999. Mani Kongo, elderly king of the Bakongo people, sets off for Brussels in search of his daughter. He has not heard from her in years, but is optimistic that he can find her. He is also eager to rediscover the wondrous Belgium of his youth, when he was greeted by King Baudoin himself. Things of course turn out to be more complicated than he'd anticipated, and the results are deeply illuminating. In French with English subtitles.

July 11 YEELEN/BRIGHTNESS (Mali, 1987, 105 min.), directed by Souleymane Cissé. This film is set in the timeless world of African oral legend and magic. Niankoro's father is a powerful magician in the Komo secret society ("The Komo is for the Bambara the incarnation of divine knowledge. Its teaching is based on the knowledge of signs, of time and of worlds. It embraces all the domains of life and of knowledge."), who fears that his son will surpass his abilities. When the father plots to kill the son, the son leaves on a quest for magic weapons and the secrets of nature. What ensues is a film of stunning grace and beauty. An age-old story of conflict between father and son, the film is also a veiled attack on the military dictatorship of the time. In Bambara with English subtitles.

July 13 MONDAY'S GIRLS (1993, Nigeria, 50 min.), directed by Ngozi Onwurah. This documentary presents us with the iria initiation ritual of the Waikiriki people living in the Niger delta region of Nigeria Young women of marriageable age are paraded bare-breasted before the village matriarchs, then shut up in a house for five weeks of "fattening" and instruction in womanhood. Most of the girls look forward to this ritual with eagerness, but times are changing and one young woman chooses to resist. The film does not take sides in this conflict between tradition and changing times, but rather leaves us to make our own response to this complex situation. In English and in Waikiriki with English subtitles.

DELUGE (1995, USA and Ethiopia, 60 min.), directed by Salem Mekuria. In this fascinating piece of personal filmmaking, filmmaker and Wellesley College professor Salem Mekuria merges her own experience with that of her native Ethiopia during the political, social, and military upheavals of the Seventies and Eighties. We see a whole generation of young idealists and intellectuals, who dream of a new order, and then see their dreams crumble into opportunism, factionalism, internecine plots, and finally the torture chambers and death camps of the military dictatorship, the Derg. By focusing on her brother Salamon and her best friend Negist, both of whom went to the Soviet Union for training and then returned as members of opposing factions, Mekuria personalizes this complex and horrific moment in recent history. At the same time that it helps the viewer understand this period, Deluge provides a thoughtful meditation upon the value of history's lessons, which are never simple, and the resiliency of the human spirit. In English and Amharic with English subtitles.

July 18 MORTU NEGA (1988, Guinea-Bissau, 85 min.), directed by Flora Gomes. Set during the Liberation struggle (which ended in 1973) and immediately after, it is the story of one woman, Diminga, whose husband, Soko, is fighting on the front lines, her devotion to him and to the cause of independence, and the high human cost of the war against the Portuguese. The end of the war brings euphoria, but no easy solutions. Mortu Nega's intimate love story and its epic historical tale are woven together seamlessly, combining political sophistication with a belief in the power of the spirit. In Portuguese with English subtitles.

July 20 FLAME (1996, Zimbabwe, 85 min.), directed by Ingrid Sinclair. In explaining her reasons for making this film, Director Sinclair has said, "Fighting women are my heroes. . . I used the independence struggle as a metaphor for the struggle for personal independence of all women." A historical drama set during the Chimurenga, the liberation struggle of the Seventies that transformed White-run Rhodesia into contemporary Zimbabwe, Flame focuses on the wartime experiences of women who played a crucial role in that struggle but frequently found themselves subjected to gender oppression during the war and after. It is the story of two young women, who leave their village to join the struggle as guerrilla fighters. Cautious and bookish, Nyasha becomes an information officer and takes on the guerrilla name of Liberty. Florence, brave and big-hearted, selects Flame as her name and becomes a legendary fighting commander. Although the war ends in victory, the women emerge from it disillusioned, separated from each other, and scarred in many ways. Not surprisingly, Flame has been a controversial film in Zimbabwe, unveiling aspects of the way male soldiers treated their female comrades during theChimurenga that many would rather forget, as well as aspects of the post-revolutionary socio-political reality that they would rather ignore. It is a powerful film, critical of hypocrisy, but surprisingly uplifting. In English.

July 25 HYENAS (Senegal, 1992, 113 min.), directed by Djibril Diop Mambéty. By the director of Touki Bouki, this film centers on the return after thirty years of the fabulously wealthy prostitute, Linguère Ramatou. As a poor young girl, she was driven out of the village in shame after being seduced, made pregnant, and then spurned by a young man in search of a wealthy wife. Now, she offers the impoverished villagers a trillion dollars--if they will destroy the man who destroyed her. Based on a play by the Swiss playwright Dürrenmatt, Hyenas is the product of an artist with a profoundly modernist sensibility, simultaneously political, moral, and aesthetically daring. In Wolof with English subtitles.

July 27 SANKOFA (1993, Ghana and Jamaica, 125 min.), directed by Haile Gerima. Sankofa, in the Akan language, means "returning to your past, recovering what you've lost, and moving forward." A parable of African-American enslavement and resistance, the film tells the story of Mona, an African-American fashion model on a photo shoot at Cape Coast Castle in Ghana. She is transported back in time to a sugar cane plantation in the Americas, where she becomes Shola, an enslaved African woman. There she experiences firsthand the brutality of the slave system and undergoes a personal and cultural awakening. Winner of a number of awards around the world, Sankofa was made by expatriate Ethiopian director Haile Gerima, best known for his film Harvest 3000 Years. In English.

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