FESPACO Past and Future: Voices from the Archive

Abstract

FESPACO Past and Future:Voices from the Archive June Givanni (bio) Introduction FESPACO came into being in an era of struggle for independence, when Fanonian principles of self-determination and decolonization of the mind were necessary prerequisites to that process, and any historical review of its existence will find these key purposes as significant drivers for all constituencies of users (visitors/participants) and those who value festivals—audiences, filmmakers, actors, writers, technicians, curators and programmers, critics, policy makers, cultural activists, archivists, and others. All hold not only memories, but opinions based on their own experiences of this major festival that gathers people from across the continent and across the globe to explore, promote, and celebrate African cinema. To provide an idea of the position from which my comments and observations are made, I am writing as a curator and programmer of Pan-African cinema1 and an archivist by necessity from the pre-digital era; and as someone who has been a regular attendee at FESPACO since 1985 during the Sankara era—in all of those capacities. I have not only my own observations2 and experiences of FESPACO, but in the shape of the June Givanni Pan-African Cinema Archive (JGPACA) I have captured, recorded, and gathered materials that witness the festival's history over those years and the views and experiences of many other professionals and local fans of cinema at the festival. Of course mine is not a unique position—other collectors from their position have also done the same; notably the Tunisian archivist and filmmaker Mohammed Chalouff who has assiduously recorded the history of both FESPACO and its twin festival JCC (Journée Cinématographique de Carthage) for many decades in the form of a number of publications and films. Most recently, in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of FESPACO, the JGPACA organized an installation of films made at the festival over the years (with in-kind support from FESPACO, Black Camera at Indiana University, and AiM), where the films were open to all visitors to the JGPACA stand at [End Page 301] the MICA (The International Market for TV and African Cinema) all day to view on five screens with headphones, and we held lunchtime discussions at the stand with the filmmakers concerned present at FESPACO who we invited to discuss their work with spectators and colleagues.34 The materials I have gathered in the June Givanni Pan-African Cinema Archive are not exhaustive and were not collected to present an objective assessment (some years later) of the film festivals and of Pan-African cinema. So there is not only subjectivity in the collections in the archive and in my views on FESPACO, there are also limitations of formats and of deterioration which have an impact on what is available for such a reflection. However, there are materials in various formats from FESPACO over those years to be found in the archive, including films shot at FESPACO by various filmmakers. The JGPACA archive materials contain the views of others including many filmmakers and industry professionals and some of those responsible for staging FESPACO, which—in addition to my own memories, experiences, and impressions—I will use to address a few key points that might contribute to this collection of ideas around FESPACO past, present, and future. One of the underlying sources of cinematic ideas that I think is important to mention here relates to the significance of Third Cinema which was the platform around which I began to engage with and shape ideas around the potential for cinema as a liberating force, in working on London's Festival of Third World Cinema 'Third Eye' in London in 1983,5 and is therefore evident in the archive at various levels. Third Eye was a festival where filmmakers and other film professionals from Africa, South America, and the Caribbean, the Indian sub-continent, as well as African American and Black British filmmakers were gathered for a two week film festival in London and a four-day Symposium (which continued the following year with a focus on Black British cinema). Third Cinema and Third Eye signalled a clear context for the revolutionary role of cinema and the...