Towards Reframing FESPACO

Abstract

Towards Reframing FESPACO Imruh Bakari (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Figure K. Vendor market outside FESPACO theater. Courtesy of FESPACO. [End Page 288] Grounding with the Pioneers As is widely recorded, over fifty years ago, an African cinema presence emerged through the work of a number of individuals, of whom, Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, Ousmane Sembène, Tahar Cheriaa, Lionel Ngakane, and Med Hondo, are among the most widely known.1 Their work encompassed not only making films, but the establishment of FEPACI, the Pan-African Federation of Filmmakers, an organization of filmmakers; and FESPACO, the international festival of African cinema in Ouagadougou. In view of the global status of Africa and its peoples by the mid-twentieth century, the emergence of African filmmakers in the 1950s, undoubtedly posed a threat that was not taken lightly by the entrenched colonial and imperialist powers. Opposing the established hegemonies was a primary stance of the new African filmmakers. Their ideas and intentions found resonance in the political movements for the establishment of independent African states, and in the foundational ideas of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), later to become the African Union (AU). Hence, the questions of a cinema economy, its dynamics, and the essential need for a film industry (or film industries) could also not be avoided. As an underlying impulse towards pursuing these goals in the post-independence era, the idea of Pan-Africanism also, cannot be over-emphasized, as it speaks directly to the issues of Africa as a "global" reality. It also speaks directly to the historical processes of African identities, as being both dynamic and diverse, and shaped over the centuries through various human migrations and interactions. Pan-Africanism, therefore, emphatically offers perspectives for engaging with the past and envisioning the future. This future, in my understanding, is predicated on the notion of a modern Africa, "as much a space as an idea" in human history, which essentially brings into focus the question of the "Diaspora."2 It is here, within a legacy of Pan-African ideas and action, can be located two personally influential "pioneers," Lionel Ngakane (South Africa) and Med Hondo (Mauritania). As an anecdotal note, both Ngakane [End Page 289] and Hondo lived outside of the African continent for significant periods of their lives and have both provided an inspirational counterpoint for my own contemplation on FESPACO, as a forum designed to give form and expression to the lived experience of the continent's people, both past and present. Ngakane and Hondo were both profoundly shaped by and through the unavoidable and simultaneous negotiation of diaspora realities and global forces impacting on the African continent in the twentieth century.3 Their situation can be understood as being intrinsic to defining their individual work in African cinema. While these filmmakers would claim as their principal focus, the work of making films, this unavoidably involved a confrontation with established codes, conventions, and ideas about cinema, and importantly, the representation of Africa and Africans in cinema. Like their contemporaries from other parts of Africa, Latin America, and Asia, the questions of a cinema economy, its dynamics, and the essential needs of a film industry could also not be avoided. Across Med Hondo's eight feature length films made between 1967 and 2004, there are the recurring themes of Africa's diversity and the diaspora condition. Importantly, his statement "What Is Cinema for Us?," Hondo articulates the modern experience of the global African diaspora, as one of being subjected "to leave their countries, often despite themselves, to contribute to the development and overdevelopment of countries that don't need them, and that use their excesses to dominate us."4 Although this statement can be interrogated to reveal a range of specific and nuanced meaning, it essentially defines the core predicament of the African diaspora condition, from "trans-Atlantic slavery" to "Black Lives Matter" and the present postcolonial era. During my tenure as Festival Director of the Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIFF), Med Hondo was the first filmmaker invited as guest of honor in 2000. ZIFF was then in its third year, and as part of the effort to reinforce the festival's identity, this was...