French African Film Festival at Images Cinema
Over five consecutive Mondays, from February 9th to March 9th, 2009, the Williams College Department of Romance Languages will screen five recent French language films from Africa at Images Cinema: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's Daratt, Laurent Salgues's Dreams of Dust, S. Pierre Yameogo's Delwende, Cheikh Djemaï's Frantz Fanon, and Abderrahmane Sissako's Bamako.Through these films, "Critical Visions" attempts to address the following questions: How has Francophone cinema reproduced or challenged pervasive media images of war, famine, and the natural beauty of the African continent? How does Francophone film expose stereotypes of Africa and provide more complex and nuanced debates on African lives, politics, and identities? How does Francophone African film advocate for critical engagement and activism? It is our hope that through recent film from Francophone Africa we can enter into conversations about the production and circulation of images while being consciously aware of the history of representation of the continent.
For our opening night on February 9, the prominent African film scholar Professor Samba Gadjigo of Mount Holyoke College will give an inaugural address at 6PM, before the film screening of Daratt at 7PM. Professor Gadjigos's talk is titled "Africa from the Other Side of the Mirror: African Filmic Representations" and includes a screening of his short film on Ousmane Sembene and film production in Africa. All are warmly invited to this inaugural address and film, both at Images Cinema, beginning at 6PM. Professors Kashia Pieprzak, Brian Martin, Stéphane Robolin, and Neil Roberts from the Williams College Department of Romance Languages and Program in Africana Studies will give introductions to the other films in the series and lead discussions afterwards.
All film screenings will be at 7PM, and are free and open to the public. Images Cinema is located at 50 Spring Street in Williamstown, MA. For more information on each of these films, which are all in French with English subtitles, see the Images website: http://www.imagescinema.org/events.php.
This series is a collaboration with the Tournées Festival of the French-American Cultural Exchange Council, which was made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the French Ministry of Culture (CNC), as well as the Florence Gould Foundation, the Grand Marnier Foundation, Highbrow Entertainment, Agnès B.,? and the Franco-American Cultural Fund. Presented by the Williams College Department of Romance Languages and cosponsored by the Center for Foreign Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, the Program in Africana Studies, the Program in Women's and Gender Studies, the Multi Cultural Center, and with generous funding from the Kagle Gift.
FILM DESCRIPTIONS
Monday, February 9, at 7PM: DARATT 1 hour 36 minutes. In French and Arabic with English subtitles. 2006 When the long and devastating civil war in Chad ends, survivors are hoping that justice will be served against those who were involved in the genocide. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, however, chooses not to condemn them. Young Atim, whose father was murdered before his birth during the conflict, is given a gun by his blind grandfather and ordered to avenge his family. Determined to take revenge, Atim looks for Nassara, his father's torturer. Instead of finding a cold-blooded murderer, Atim meets a charitable baker and a soon-to-be father who seeks redemption through religion. Atim cannot bring himself to kill Nassara in cold blood, and lets himself be hired as his assistant, creating a strange and complex relationship. Nassara initiates Atim into his work and offers to share his house with him and his young wife Aïcha. Little by little, Nassara plays the role of the father to this young orphan. However, while a tactful proximity grows between Aïcha and Atim, the latter, still imbued by his mission and faithful to his father memory, is ardently resisting Nassara's influence. When Nassara asks to adopt him, Atim pretends that he wants Nassara to get his father's approval. However, instead of bringing him to his village, he brings him to the desert where they meet his grandfather.
Monday, February 16, at 7PM: RÊVES DE POUSSIÈRE (DREAMS OF DUST) 1 hour 26 minutes. In French with English subtitles. 2006 Mocktar, a Nigerian peasant who lost his entire family in a terrible accident, tries to rebuild his life. He goes to Essakane, a dusty gold mine in Northeast Burkina Faso, to look for work and to forget the past that haunts him. He is quickly introduced to the small community of miners and begins working in the dangerous tunnels of the mine. Little by little, Mocktar discovers that the gold rush ended twenty years before, and the inhabitants of this wasteland manage to exist simply from force of habit. In Essakane, the life of the whole population revolves around the irrational expectation of finding gold. Hope makes them surpass the threat of the mines. Among the inhabitants, the beautiful Coumba is still courageously struggling to raise her daughter. She takes care of her alone as her husband died in the mine. As he falls in love with Coumba, he fights not only to survive, but also to provide a better future for her and her child. He puts together enough money to prepare for their departure for France where Coumba's daughter will get a proper education and a chance of becoming someone.
Monday, February 23, at 7PM: DELWENDE: LÈVE-TOI ET MARCHE (DELWENDE: ARISE AND WALK) 1 hour 39 minutes. In French with English subtitles. 2005 This mother-daughter tale focuses on the injustice of some traditional African practices and women's struggle for equality. A small village in Burkino Faso is devastated by the sudden death of many of its children. Fearing the worst, Diarrha sends his daughter Pougbila to get married in another village despite the objections of his wife Napoko. She learns that their daughter has been raped, possibly by her own husband and therefore she accepts the arranged marriage despite her own reservations. Following a village tradition, the elders conduct a witch-hunt to find the person responsible for all the deaths. The blame falls on Napoko and she is chased out of the village. Upon learning of her mother's fate, Pougbila embarks on a journey to find her. Her travel leads her to the capital, Ouagadougou, where she finds her mother in a shelter for women accused of witchcraft. Intent on exposing the truth, she brings Napoko home and forces the elders to confront the truth: Diarrha took advantage of a local village tradition in order to direct the blame towards his wife. Based on a true story, Delwende examines some traditional customs in Africa and the role women play in exposing the injustices perpetrated against them.
Monday, March 2, at 7PM: FRANTZ FANON: SA VIE, SON COMBAT, SON TRAVAIL (FRANTZ FANON: HIS LIFE, HIS STRUGGLE, HIS WORK) 2 hours 20 minutes. In French with English subtitles. 2004 Frantz Fanon was a psychiatrist, originally from Martinique, who became a spokesman for the Algerian revolution against French colonialism. During the Second World War, he volunteered as a soldier to help France, "the Mother Country," against the Nazis. Embittered by his experience with racism in the French Army, he gravitated to radical politics, Sartrean existentialism, and the philosophy of black consciousness known as négritude. His 1952 book, '"Black Skin, White Masks,"' offers a penetrating analysis of racism and oppression in colonized countries and of the ways in which it is internalized by its victims. While secretly aiding the rebels of the Algerian anti-colonial war as a doctor in Algeria, Fanon cared for victims and perpetrators alike, producing case notes that shed invaluable light on the psychic traumas of colonial war. Expelled from Algeria in 1956, Fanon moved to Tunis where he wrote for El Moudjahid, the rebel newspaper, founded Africa's first psychiatric clinic, and wrote several influential books on decolonization. Frantz Fanon, His Life, His Struggle, His Work reunites testimonies of friends, family, and colleagues that he met during the different steps of his life and traces the short and intense life of one of the great thinkers of the 20th century.
Monday, March 9, at 7PM: BAMAKO 1 hour 55 minutes. In French and Bambara with English subtitles. 2006 Over the course of a few days, a trial pitting African civil society against such international financial institutions as the World Bank and the IMF has set a stage in the courtyard of a home in Bamako, Mali. The trial's examination of Africa's debt to the World Bank, which threatens Africa's sovereignty and continues to alienate and deprive her people, provides a surreal contrast to the everyday life shared by families whose homes surround the courtyard. As numerous trial witnesses (schoolteachers, farmers, writers) air bracing indictments against the multinational economic machinery that haunts them, life in the courtyard presses forward. Chaka, an unemployed married father, is preoccupied with the imminent break up of his marriage to Melé, a popular Bamako lounge singer. He is being harassed by a detective who accuses him of stealing a gun. In the midst of the powerful testimonies being made at the trial, the juxtaposition of Chake and Melé's story, as well as those of their neighbours, give a voice to Africa's silent majority and further fortifies Africa's case against the World Bank. Filled with warm colors and inspirational music, Bamako voices Africa's grievances in an original and profoundly moving way: educating, and at the same time, entertaining the audience.
