African Studies
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FILMS, VIDEOS & DVDS FOR African Studies The Future Of Mud: A Tale of Houses and Lives in Djenne A Film by Susan Vogel Presented by the Musée National du Mali This constructed documentary blends In interviews, information with narrative to show family members the cycle of mud building and the lives of masons talk about the in Djenne, a UNESCO World Heritage city in Mali. town of Djenne, its buildings, and THE FUTURE OF MUD focuses on the mason their desires for Komusa Tenaepo, who hopes that his son will the future, as do succeed him. The film shows a day in the life of a distinguished the mason and Amadou, his young helper from Koranic master, a poor family near Timbuktu, as Komusa decides and a staff whether to allow his son to leave for schooling member of the government office charged with in the capital. preserving the architecture of Djenne. The film reveals the interdependence between The film ends with thousands of participants at the masons, buildings, and lives lived in them. It exam- annual replastering of Djenne’s beloved mosque, ines the tenuous survival of the inherited learning an age-old event, which, for the first time, has been of masons, and the hard work that sustain this specially staged in hopes of attracting tourists. style of architecture. It shows life in Djenne’s mud buildings: courtyards, a blacksmiths’ workshop, a 2007 RAI International Festival of Ethnographic Film modern white vinyl sitting room, the construction site, and Friday prayers at the great mosque. 58 minutes | color | 2007 Sale/DVD: $390 | Order #AF7-01 First Run/Icarus Films | 1 Living Memory Malick Sidibé: A Film by Susan Vogel Portrait of the Artist as a Portraitist Produced by Susan Vogel, Samuel Sidibé, Eric Engles & the Musée National du Mali A Film by Susan Vogel The film is constructed in six sketches, focusing on This short but sweet film looks at the work of the “Brilliant!... perfect for teaching African art and Ritual Arts, Culture on Display, Style, Architecture, renowned African artist whose photographs have photography.”—Christraud M. Geary, Curator of Contemporary Artists and Music. Alternately sen- documented social and cultural changes in Mali African and Oceanic Art, Museum of Fine Arts, sual, ironic, beautiful and humorous, the film over a forty-year period. In a rare interview, this Boston exposes tensions in a culture assailed by modern- self-taught photographer, now seventy years old, “A timely and highly welcome portrait… highly ization, Islam and global tourism, yet confident discusses his views of photography as a “social recommended for all interested in Malian visual that it will maintain its own distinctive character. art form.” culture and the history of photography!” “Engages the full sweep of Mali’s contemporary MALICK SIDIBÉ showcases many of his best —Professor Tobias Wendl, University of Bayreuth, artistic production with an exceptional visual known photos, especially those documenting Author of Snap Me One: Studiofotografen and conceptual clarity… A must see film for... LIVING MEMORY is a film about Mali’s ancient Malian youth culture in the Sixties. in Afrika students of African art and culture.” culture, and its position in the country’s society —Mary Jo Arnoldi, Curator, African Art and today. Filmed with a Malian crew, cut to the beat Culture, National Museum of Natural History, of Malian music, the film offers an alluring mosaic Smithsonian Institution of perspectives. “Ambitious… Richly textured.” Home of the ancient empires, this landlocked —Holland Cotter, The New York Times desert nation is one of the ten poorest countries yet, paradoxically, a rich culture flourishes, and “Eloquently describes the power of tradition in Malian artists are prominent in contemporary contemporary Malian society... Recommended!” Africa. —Educational Media Reviews Online Samuel Sidibé (Director of the Musée National du 2005 New York African Film Festival Mali), the brilliant Malian cinematographer Racine 2004 African Studies Association Golden Lifetime Achievement Award Keita and Susan Vogel (founder of the Museum Film Festival to Malick Sidibé, 2007 Venice Biennale for African Art, New York) provide unparalleled 53 minutes | color | 2003 2006 African Studies Association Film Festival access and an insider’s vision. Sale/DVD: $390 | Order #AF7-02 8 minutes | color | 2005 Sale/DVD: $125 | Order #AF7-03 Fang: An Epic Journey A Film by Susan Vogel FANG mixes documentary and fiction techniques to recount an African art object’s journey through a century of peril and adventure, and uses the film styles of each historical period to tell its story—a whole century of Western attitudes towards African culture packed into 8 minutes. “Highly Recommended! [A] little gem.” —Educational Media Reviews Online 2004 African Studies Association 8 minutes | color/b&w | 2001 Film Festival Sale/DVD: $125 | Order #AF7-04 2 | First Run/Icarus Films See Page 23 for Ordering Information | 3 Bruly Bouabré’s Alphabet Photo Souvenir A Film by Nurith Aviv A Film by Paul Cohen & Martijn van Haalen from the same period has brought them renewed attention and financial rewards. While the film documents the effort by two French photo connoisseurs to organize an exhibition of Koudjina’s work in Paris, PHOTO SOUVENIR reveals the fickle cultural process by which one- time “photo souvenirs” become “photographic art.” “PHOTO SOUVENIR has a visual power, it is poetry.”—Skrien Filmmagazine During the euphoria of a newly Golden Calf for Best Documentary, In the 1950s, Ivory Coast artist Frederic Bruly independent Niger in the 1960s, 2006 Netherlands Film Festival Bouabré created several hundred pictograms, Philippe Koudjina worked as a photojournalist 54 minutes | color | 2006 based on one-syllable words in his language, and later opened his own photo studio. For many Sale/DVD: $390 | Order #AF7-06 Bété, to help people in the Bété community learn years his snapshots of the youth scene in Niamey to read more quickly. Although some 600,000 and his family portraits provided Koudjina with a Bétés live in the Ivory Coast, their language is not good living. taught in schools, and all education is conducted Today Koudjina has fallen on hard times. He is no in French. longer able to take photos because he is slowly Bouabré’s 400 pictograms, in various combina- losing his sight to glaucoma. After being hit by a car, he must use crutches to get around, and he tions, provide a playful yet tangible method of “Recommended! Excellent.” can’t afford medical care. His cameras, photo- instruction, as demonstrated in BRULY BOUABRÉ’S —Educational Media Reviews Online ALPHABET. As the now elderly Bouabré explains, graphic equipment and a disorganized collection his aim was to “form a specific African writing “[Bouabré] deciphers the world as a visual text, of negatives gather dust in a cupboard, while he from scenes of human life.” Today a small creating a comprehensive guide to everything begs on the street in order to survive. and everyone. Over decades Bouabré created number of people continue to use Bruly’s PHOTO SOUVENIR features interviews with a visual manuscript, an art manifesto, of life, alphabet, and museums around the world have Koudjina, who recounts his photographic heyday, death and everything; a metaphysically sympa- exhibited his drawings. while reminiscences by friends and acquaintances thetic curation of the entire modern world.” 2006 Society for Visual are complemented by many of Koudjina’s distinc- —BBC Anthropology Film Festival tive black-and-white photos. 2005 African Studies Association 17 minutes | color | 2004 Film Festival Sale/DVD: $150 | Order #AF7-05 Koudjina’s desperate situation is contrasted with the fortunes of other African photographers such as Malick Sidibé and Seydou Keita, whose work 4 | First Run/Icarus Films See Page 23 for Ordering Information | 5 The Life and Times of Sara Baartman— Last Grave at Dimbaza “The Hottentot Venus” Directed by Chris Curling & Pascoe Macfarlane A Film by Zola Maseko Produced by Nana Mahomo, Antonia Caccia & Andrew Tsehlana This film tells the story of the Khoi deconstructs the social, political, scientific and In 1969, a small group of South African By combining its clandestinely-photographed scenes Khoi woman who in 1810 was taken philosophical assumptions which transformed one exiles and British film students formed of everyday life with relevant statements from from South Africa, and then exhibited as a freak young African woman into a representation of Morena Films in London to produce films about National Party leaders such as B.J. Vorster that char- across Britain. The image and idea of “The savage sexuality and racial inferiority. apartheid. In 1974 they produced one of the first, acterize the government’s unabashedly racist poli- Hottentot Venus” swept through British popular and certainly one of the most influential, films about cies, LAST GRAVE AT DIMBAZA becomes a stunning “A telling and quite powerful film.” culture. In 1814 she was taken to France, where South Africa’s racist regime. LAST GRAVE AT DIM- indictment of the apartheid system, which had con- —American Historical Review she became the BAZA—shot clandestinely and smuggled out of the trolled South Africa since 1948. The film’s object of scientific “Excellent...An important film.” country—had an enormous impact on global concluding scenes, contrasting increasing labor and medical research —Anthropology Review Database opinion at a critical moment in the anti-apartheid unrest and strikes amongst black workers and the struggle, revealing to audiences worldwide the compulsory training in armaments use for all white that formed the Best African Documentary, bedrock of European 1999 FESPACO African shocking inequalities between whites and blacks in South Africans, dramatically foreshadows the conflict ideas about black Film Festival (Ouagadougou South Africa. It went on to win major awards at that developed during the following two decades, Burkina Faso) female sexuality.