1998 New York African Film Festival

1998 NewYork African Film Festival liz mermin T his year's New York A frican Film Fes tival opene d to a full house, with two films th at took on issu es of violence and division within contemporary Africa n societies. Gone are th e co lo nial di ch otomies and the romantic cele bratio n of th e co mmon people that characte rized man y A frica n film s of th e recent past. Africa n films o f th e sixties and seventies were often nati onal ist, ant i-colo nialist, while film s of th e eig hties tended (excluding "ca labash" films, or ex otic vi llage tales) to be socialist or populist and agains t ne w A frican elites . Its not clear how to pinpoint th e next wave, bu t if th e film s on displ ay at th is years' festi val are re presentative it is safe to say filmma ke rs are starting to become disillusioned with the masses. Fewer films oc cupy man ichean worlds. C haracters are more co mplica ted . And while it is clear that things ar e a mess, it is less clear now whose fault th is is supposed to be and whe re hope for the future lies. This cha nge was particularl y striking in th e two film s from South A frica show n IIII:I1:!I Jo urnal of Contempora ry African Art on ope ning night: Zo la Maseko's short The Foreigner ( 1997) and Ramad an Sul emari's Fools (1997). Judging from The Foreigner's opening shot, which appears to have been taken from a helicopter, Maseko had quite a budget fo r this 15 mi nute short, and the high producti on values enha nce th e film 's moralistic tone. A West A frica n street ve ndor in South A fric a, whom everyone hat es because he is an outside r and a successful sales ma n, befri ends a homeless boy an d tr ies to tea ch him abou t A frican solidarity but is beaten to death by rival ve ndors. There is nothing noble about th e poor in The Foreigner, no class analysis fra ming the ve ndors' brutality. Fools is a more co m plicated sto ry, expertly co ns tructed with co mplex and morall y ambiguous cha racterslike an alcoholic, rap ist teach er whose desperati on pushes him toward heroic actio n, and a bold but naive co llege boy who tries to fight a co lo nialist mentality with one hand and vi olent thugs with th e other. Again violent masses ga ng up on an idealistic young hero, making a point about problems internal to African so cieties. Fools is bleak and its not clear in th e end who, if anyone , we are to identify with; but while it mocks idealism , it ma in tains faith in redemption . The performances are exce llent, and th e film's unusu al moral amb iguities make it disturbing and powerful. Post-Apartheid South Africa is posing a serio us cha lle nge to th e hegemony of fra ncophone film on the co ntine nt, in some cases with Frenc h producers (Fo ols was produced by th e Parisian JBA). For decades filmmakers from francophone co untr ies received more money from European associatio ns than th ei r angloph one co unterparts, dominating FESPACO an d th e African film scene . The disinteg rati on of this rivalry is sy mbolized by one of th e festi val's greates t film s, Idrissa O ue draogo's Kini and Adam s ( 1997) . Since O ue draogo is from Burkina Faso, this decisio n by one of the continent's best known filmmakers to shoot in South A frica with actors speaking in English can be interpreted both as a gestu re of peace in th e language wars (remarkably he to o received Fre nc h fundi ng for th is film ) and as a co m- mercial mo ve toward a...