Karmen Geï and U-Carmen eKhayelitsha: Africana Womanism Meets Mérimée and Bizet in African Cinema

Abstract

Joseph Gaï Ramaka’s Karmen Geï (Senegal, 2001) and Mark Dornford-May’s U-Carmen eKhayelitsha (South Africa, 2005) restore key aspects present in Prosper Mérimée’s 1845 novella, Carmen, but omitted from Georges Bizet’s 1875 opera adaptation. By resisting the gendered precepts through which Mérimée sought to underpin his misogynist vision, these African films create not only a fuller portrait of Carmen, but also one that aligns with Africana womanist and Afrofeminist perspectives. Their transcultural revisioning of the Carmen story foregrounds female agency, together with a critique of the systemic violence that undermines it, in a way that contrasts with Western interpretations.