African Cinema in the Tempest of Minor Festivals

Abstract

African Cinema in the Tempest of Minor Festivals Sambolgo Bangré (bio) "To become known, African cinema has gone towards international festivals," said the father of African critics, Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, at the beginning of the 1970s. Kept at a distance from the continent's screens monopolized by the former distribution structures of Compagnie Africaine Cinématographique Industrielle et Commerciale (COMACICO) and Société d'Exploitation Cinématographique Africaine (SECMA), the first films by African filmmakers produced from the early 1960s onwards were revealed to the public only after having negotiated their recognition at festivals organized outside the continent. The 1961 Berlin Festival was the first to select African films, which were by Senegalese filmmakers: Blaise Senghor's Grand Magal de Touba (1960), which received a Silver Bear for the best short film, and Paulin Soumanou Vieyra's Une Nation est née (1961), which received a special mention. Between 1961 and 1975, numerous festivals in Europe and America followed Berlin's example, thus contributing very early on to the recognition of African cinema. Films shown to the public at Moscow, Leipzig, San Francisco, New York, Venice, and Locarno included Borom Sarret (1961, Senegal), Ousmane Sembène's first short film, and The Mummy (1970) by the Egyptian Chadi Abd-el-Salam. But there can be no doubt whatsoever that it was the prestigious Cannes Festival, by awarding prizes to Sembène's La Noire de (Senegal) and Le Vent des Aures by the Algerian Lakhdar Hamina, in 1966 and 1969 respectively, that definitely marked the recognition of African cinema. Since then, it has continued to arouse increasing popular and critical interest at Western festivals. In Africa itself, the idea of creating film festivals on the continent came about with the birth of African cinema as a solution that would enable the cinema to go forth and meet its public. The first Festival des Arts Nègres at Dakar, organised in 1966, responded in part to this spirit. It was to open up the way for the Journées Cinématographiques de Carthage, created in 1966 in Tunis, and the Pan-African Festival of Cinema and Television in Ougadougou in 1969. [End Page 90] For twenty years, with a production having its fair share of ups and downs, African cinema thus went out towards the festivals to find credibility that neither the monopolized African market nor the local cinema authorities could guarantee. For about ten years, it has now been the festivals that have been going towards African cinema. The number of international festivals and events has been growing and, with them, the number of seminars and professional meetings. The window that was opened in the past to African films in the festivals has now been opened much wider and festivals devoted exclusively to African cinema have been established almost everywhere in the course of the years. European countries now have a total of more than 500 film events. The record belongs to France, where more than 160 film events are held each year. Here, three major festivals are exclusively or partially devoted to African cinema, namely the Amiens Festival, created in 1980, the Cinemas of Africa Festival of Angers, first held in 1987, and the Festival of Three Continents, held in Nantes since 1982. Whatever the "obsessions" behind them, the other events in Europe or in America (women's film festivals, festivals of films for children, and the like) all or nearly all grant a place to African cinema. The flourishing of festivals was noticeable especially in the years between 1983 and 1990, a period during which very different types of festivals were established in the majority of European cities. In France again, more than 150 towns are concerned. In the film industry, the disappearance of film clubs in the 1960s and of art theaters in the 1970s left a void that the festivals have filled, thus continuing to satisfy the desire of cinema lovers for images. In 1992, the French public interested in festivals was estimated to be about a million, that is, one percent of cinemagoers. When they are being created, all the festivals declare the same objectives: to distribute and promote films; to enable filmmakers, critics, the...