Cinema and Development in West Africa: Film as a Vehicle for Liberation

Postscript: Francophone West African Cinema to the Present

158 postscript: francophone West african Cinema to the present this study has argued for the importance of the cinema industrial complex as a site of contestation between french colonial (and postcolonial) officials and West african cultural activists from the late 1940s to the mid-1970s over the shape and nature of african cultural and economic development in the region. in the mid1970s West african cineastes could point to significant progress in wresting control over the materialist and representational aspects of the cinematic field from france and foreign distribution companies. By the time fepaCi gathered for its second congress in 1975 dozens of filmmakers from the region had picked up the camera and produced remarkable work. from sembène’s 1963 release of Borom Sarret to mambety’s Touki-bouki a decade later, francophone West african cinema had undergone profound growth both qualitatively and quantitatively. Cineastes from the region had produced the first full-length feature, the first color feature film, and the first motion picture primarily in an african language. moreover, Hondo, Cissé, mambety, and others had contributed to the articulation of an african cinematographic discourse that was multivalent but that still could be described as specifically “african.” Despite ongoing debates about aesthetics and commercial vs. political film, by the mid-1970s there was an african cinema that did not exist a decade earlier. african filmmakers also had carved out an independent place within the global cinematic field, and they assumed prominent roles in both theoretical conversations and institutional developments throughout the world. moreover, West african governments were beginning to take on the foreign distribution monopolies and realize the potential economic benefit that could be derived from the cinema industrial complex. for cineastes grouped in fepaCi, the nationalization of the theater systems in Upper volta, senegal, mali, and elsewhere opened the prospect that their work could be consumed by audiences in their home countries on the silver screen rather than being confined to the festival circuit. movie theater patrons in Dakar, Bamako, and ouagadougou could finally be exposed to a counterhegemonic image-africa that undermined the negative imperialist tropes propagated by both colonialist and entertainment films throughout the period of foreign domination. Francophone West African Cinema to the Present | 159 However, vieyra’s project of creating a “cinema in the service of the people” had not yet been realized. in fact, years later he noted that the mid-1970s marked a turning point. rather than inaugurating a new, vibrant age of motion picture making , it marked the end of an era. vierya pointed to a dramatic fall in productivity after 1975 even among the most well-established West african cineastes. after the 1976 release of sembène’s Ceddo (1976), it was another decade before the “father of african cinema” reemerged with Camp de Thiaroye (1988). mambety practically vanished from the cinematic field after Touki-bouki, taking nearly twenty years to release his next major feature film, Hyènes (1992). The experiences of those prominent West african cineastes were typical of almost all others who wanted to make movies after the mid-1970s. The problem for african filmmakers resided in the enduring structural obstacles they confronted in making motion pictures. The materialist aspect of the cinema industrial complex remained largely beyond West africans’ control. Consequently, in 1989 vieyra could write that “in africa there are no film industries . . . . The materials required to make african films are imported from all over the world. . . . [t]here is virtually no industrial base for african cinema, [and] its commercial organization is in its first and hesitant stages.”1 Upper volta’s nationalization of the theater system in 1970 points to the intractable obstacles faced by africans as they attempted to develop their economies and reconstruct their cultures. While ComaCiCo and seCma lost control over the physical space of the movie theater, they could still use their leverage as distributors of the films to force Upper volta to sign exclusive commercial treaties to purchase the product from them. moreover, france’s funding for filmmaking through the ministère de la coopération and even the aCCt required that african directors surrender the rights to noncommercial distribution of the films. The result was that african motion pictures became another export commodity largely consumed in the West, primarily through the festival circuit, and that the revenues generated from their exploitation either went to paying off the debts incurred by the directors in making the movie or wound up in the coffers of Western distribution companies and the...