The Practice of Curating the June Givanni Pan African Cinema Archive: A Conversation with the Founding Director

You learn something new every time you situate a piece of past knowledge in a new context.¹

My whole interest and inspiration for working in film has been about challenging misrepresentation, enriching people's knowledge and showcasing the rich history of the African continent and the African diaspora, which has so much to offer.²

Figure 1.

June Givanni, Movements show. Courtesy of June Givanni.

At the intersection of Pan-Africanism as an organizing construct and practice in world affairs, Négritude, unmasking colonial referents, and cinema, counter-historical mode of cultural production, find June Givanni at the epicenter of all manner of artistic activity (fig. 1). Indeed, like the recently deceased Okwui Enwezor for African art, Givanni merits the distinction of curator extraordinaire for African and black diaspora cinema. Interlocutor, writer, and founding director of the June Givanni Pan African Cinema Archive (JGPACA),³ for her accomplishments she received an honorary doctorate in 2018 from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Respected and admired by cineaste, filmmaker, cultural worker, and scholar alike, Givanni based in London labors in varied cultural contexts spanning thirty-five years and across five continents.

To illustrate, consider these strategic interventions as evidence of Givanni's indelible contribution to no less than defining and documenting a self-reflexive cinematic renaissance in the long history of African and black diasporic representation and culture.

• • She was the co-coordinator of the "Third Eye" Festival of Third World Cinema held in London, 1983; participants in the symposium included Miguel Littin, Haile Gerima, Jose Massip, Bill Gunn, Clyde Taylor, Shyam Benegal, Kwaw Ansah, and Gaston Kaboré.

• • With Jim Pines and Paul Willemen, Givanni coordinated an influential conference in 1996 on "The Third Cinema Question" during the fortieth edition of the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) that contributed in no small measure to debates about what constitutes a progressive and critical cultural practice in the arts.

• • Givanni headed the African Caribbean Unit at the British Film Institute (BFI) where she served as cofounder and coeditor, with Caylene Gould, of the Black Film Bulletin (BFB) from 1993 until it ceased publication in 1997. The only publication of its kind, the BFB chronicled the global revival occurring in black filmmaking and culture during the 1980s and 1990s.

• • She published two volumes of enduring importance and utility: with Imruh Bakari, Symbolic Narratives/African Cinema: Audiences, Theory and the Moving Image (BFI, 2001) and Remote Control: Dilemmas of Black Intervention in British Film & Television (BFI, 1996).

• • Givanni was the second of three Planet Africa programmers (Cameron Bailey the first and Gaylene Gould the third) at the Toronto International Film Festival for four years from 1997, showcasing and promoting some of the best films and filmmakers that the African continent and its diaspora had to offer, ensuring industry and audience platforms.

• • Autograph ABP in 2015 invited Givanni to create an archival event to celebrate the seventieth anniversary of the fifth Pan African Congress that was first held in Manchester in 1945.⁴ Featured in the installation a selection of films screened in a studio setting. Louis Massiah's W. E. B. DuBois: A Biography in Four Voices; Where Edges of Conquest Meet, part of Euzhan Palcy's documentary trilogy Aimee Cesaire: A Voice for History; H.O. Nazareth/Penumbra's six-part series on CLR James 80th Birthday Lectures—the Caribbean and African programs; and William Greaves's film First Festival of Negro Arts.

• • In 2018, at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), Givanni curated the "Daughters of Africa Screen Narratives: Archives Revelations VII." The program featured ten short films by eight African women filmmakers Marie Ka (Senegal-Martinique), Ng'endo Mukii (Kenya), Sylvie Bayonne (Congo), Rumbi Katedza (Zimbabwe), Sarra Idris (Sudan), Onyeka Igwe (UK/Nigerian heritage), Pascale Obolo (Cameroon), and Akosua Adoma Owusu (Ghana/USA).⁵

• • And most recently at the twenty-sixth edition of FESPACO in 2019, in celebration of its fiftieth anniversary, the JGPACA organized and co-hosted an installation, featuring five...