Movies

Brief Historical Context
    African cinema refers to the film production in Africa, particularly to the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa after their formal independence in the 1960s (Thackway, 2003). Further, the term generally includes the directors from among the African diaspora (Ibid.). Also known as the Black Africa, the Sub-Saharan region is home to the majority of black population and, during the colonial era, had been represented on film as a place without history through such films as the jungle epic Tarzan and The African Queen, as well as various adaptations of the 1885 novel entitled King Solomons Mines by H. Rider Haggard (Ibid.).

    During the French colonization, filmmaking was formally forbidden to Africans, and even when films about Africa were created, they were made in France, like the first francophone African film LAfrique sur Seine which was created by Paulin Soumanou Vieyra and actually shot in Paris in 1955 (Ibid.). Prior to independence, only a few of the anti-colonial films were produced, such as the Les Statues Meurent Aussi created by Chris Marker and Alain Resnais, which was a story about the European robbery of African art which, for ten years, was banned by the French (Ibid.).

    In the 1960s and 1970s, post-colonization Africa started to surface in the film industry, with La Noire de or Black Girl by Ousmane Sembene winning an international recognition, the very first African film to win an international recognition in the history of African cinema (Stearns, 2001).  The Black Girl was an interesting film showing the despair of an African woman who needs to work as a maid in France, which the writer Sembene, who originates from Senegal, used as a medium to reach a wider audience to convey the sentiments of most black women during the time (Ibid.). Consequently, Sembene was regarded as the father of African cinema, with his native country Senegal also considered as the most important place of African film production for more than a decade (Ibid.).

    Further, the Federation of African Filmmakers (FEPACI) was formed in 1969, which was a positive step towards the professionalization of the African film industries, as the FEPACIs focus was on the promotion of African film industries in terms of production, distribution and exhibition, as well as on the role of film in the politico-economic and cultural development of the African nations and of the continent as a whole (Ibid.). In the same year, the Soliel O, containing a controversial filmic language depicting the life of a stranger with the wrong skin color in France, was shot by Med Hondo, and which was immediately recognized (Ibid.).

    From the 1980s and beyond, the African cinema has been able to develop and create various films, some have been well-received especially by the Western audience, while some have been criticized for various reasons, mostly for the socio-political contents which are vulnerable to misinterpretations especially by different interest groups. In the 1990s, with the onset of globalization trends, many of the African films (e.g., Quartier Mozart created by Jean Peirre Bekolo of Cameroon in 1992) are situated in the already globalized African metropolis (Ibid.).

    This paper tackles the issue of globalization as an influence in the shaping of the African cinema in the modern times, within the context of historical trends such as migration, diaspora, colonial pasts, contemporary circulation of commodities as well as the challenges of nation-state formation. Utilizing both primary and secondary sources available about African cinema, this paper analyzes the globalization effects on African film industry in the larger context of socio-political aspect which include the challenges on taxation, and on prioritization (increased income opportunities vs. cultural preservation), as well as the other challenges affecting the content and style of the films. 
Globalization and the African Cinema

    Globalization trends in the African film industry
    Cham (2000), in an extensive analysis of how globalization is shaping the contemporary African cinema, points out that globalization is not a new concept to the African people who had gone through decades of colonization primarily because globalization as it is now is, similar to imperialism, all-encompassing, with its multi-facetiousness of political, social and cultural likewise, unlike imperialism which has its identifiable targets, manifestations or personifications, globalization is amorphous and elusive.

    Globalization, according to Cham, is not new to the African people also because its idea of cross border or cultural connections and exchanges of different forms and scales is something that is beneficial for the humanity, and is also recognized by Africans across broad time spans and geographic spaces as the African systems of thought espouse ideas of commonality for local, regional and global humanity with the tight belief on connections, for instance, the Ngunis of Southern Africa has a saying abantu ngabantu ngabantu, which means people are people only through other people.  Likewise, the recent formulations like the Negritude, The African Personality and the African Renaissance are privilege notions of globalization that are shaped partly by the local, regional and national African specifities and contributions to the global systems. In other words, globalization does not come too strange to the Africans.

    Globalization, according to Cham, is mainly of Americanism, of capitulation, of engagement and of rejection, against or despite which the African filmmakers must weigh their options in order to cope with the globalization trends which, on one hand, seem to push Africa back to the old colonized continent, and on the other hand, pull it out of obscurity from the world. In more concrete terms, globalization has led Africa to surrender its sovereignty to global institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), through the institution of economic structural adjustment programs which basically have given birth to the tenets like privatization, elimination of subsidies, deregulation, opening the economy to free trade, free circulation of goods and all kinds of services, downsizing, competitiveness, etc. All of such globalization reforms and coping-up mechanisms have resulted to social, political, economic as well as cultural chaos and dislocations, affecting all facets of the society, of which, the least apparent could be its impact on the African culture industries including cinema.

    Barlet (2001, pp28-45) reinforces Chams arguments and state that in fact, for many of the structurally-adjusting African countries, globalizations coercive economics have not only worsened an already difficult situation for the African filmmakers, but also unloaded much bigger burdens on the African filmmaking industry with tax codes, budget cuts as well as the steady reduction and drying up of both the external and internal funding sources for production and distribution. Privatization, for instance, has caused the gradual disappearance of movie theaters from a number of urban centers except in some places (e.g., Burkina Faso, South Africa, Zimbabwe and some places in North Africa), with the governments divestiture of interest in movies theater ownership and management triggering the privatization (Ibid.). Unfortunately, these private owners soon convert the theaters into warehouses to accommodate imported commodities like rice, sugar, flour, and even cement and second-hand clothing from the West, which apparently provide significantly bigger income than operating movie theaters (Cham, 2000). Such moves have consequently given added pressure on the distribution and exhibition of African films on African soil, causing the many African films to continue being strangers in their own territories, which is further worsened by the fact that the requisite lifting of all measures has as well rendered the African cinematic landscape more vulnerable to the dumping of second-rate foreign products (Ibid.).

    On the issue of content and style, the contemporary African cinematic content and styles of storytelling have been feared to be the next victims of globalization. According to Ukadike (2002, pp.11-26), the primary danger of globalization affecting the filmmakers content and style is the fact that the African cinematic production, distribution and even exhibition are dependent on European funding, and, with the steady tide of consolidation and reduction of funding sources both from the north and west, there have been increasing pressures to standardize and to conform to global cinematic norms. It could be claimed by the rest of the worlds independent filmmakers that such pressures are not unique to Africa, but Ukadike argues that the burden is heaviest on African filmmakers, citing Algerian filmmaker Merzak Allouache who has been greatly alarmed by the trend that he witnesses among his peers, asks his fellow African filmmakers whether they are losing a sense of their own reality or are consciously compromising cinematic content for so-called northern funding. Ukadike states that the general sentiment among African filmmakers is that they could be giving in uncritically and with no resistance at all to globalization, as they are faced with the challenge of what to make of the role of the Western funders in the influencing and generally shaping African cinematic content and style in the era of globalization.     

    Recently, a growing number of African filmmakers have been reiterating the imperative for new directions towards more commercially viable cinema  to be more universal to be Y2Kcompliant to make films that are entertaining and less political and to get out of the bush, the savannah and the Sahel (Cham, 2000). Noticeably, the trend for the last two decades among African filmmakers has been to relocate to Europe and other places outside the African continent for various reasons, alongside the trend on tackling different subject matters, stories and styles, as well as languages, actors and locations of some recent African films.  These somehow indicate a move away from local, rural, national, and traditional towards more cosmopolitan, universal, global and modern (Ibid.). Apparently, the African filmmakers are following the dictum of globalization which is for them to fall in line with the mainstream and normal global entertainment otherwise they will fail (Ibid.).

    Cham further argues that the forces of globalization on the African film industry seems to lead towards a kind of compulsory homogenization which will eventually result to a so-called afrimage (p33) which is nothing but an African clone of an American shaped globimage (p33) or eurimage (p33) which harmfully steals the African difference in such constructs. Similar to the trends in the African music industry wherein the African music is now called world music as a label that has greatly devalued the authentic African musical styles that are compelled to succumb to the globalization dictates so that it can penetrate the European market, the African film industry is also being re-packaged and re-labeled to become more appealing to the Western audiences (Ibid.). In the midst of all the pressures on the African artists, cultural producers, and filmmakers in particular, to jump into the bandwagon of the so-called mainstream and normative global film culture on the one hand, and to keep and preserve Africas local cultures on the other hand, are clearly enormous and seemingly quite insurmountable. It is therefore logical for this paper to take a look at the recent films and find out if they, indeed, have fallen to the trap of globalization.

    Content analysis of African films within globalization context
    Recent trends in African filmmaking show that increasingly, many African filmmakers are showing interest in the subjects which were undeveloped in the past, like muffled allusions to romance, sexuality and desire, and in fact, have constituted the narrative vehicle for some of the recent films (Cham, 1999).  The films Dakan by Mohamed Camara of Guinea in 1997 Essaida by Tunisian filmmaker Mohamed Zran in 1996 Machaho, a very elegant and somewhat tragic film by Algerian Belcachem Hadjaj also in1996 Mossane by Senegalese Safi Faye, also in 1996  The Blue Eyes of Yonta  created in 1995 by Flora Gomes of Guinea-Bissau and, Bab El-Owed City (1994) and Salut Cousin (1996) both by Algerian Merzak Allouache, commonly focus on interpersonal relations, romance, as well as bold assertions of sexual and other desires, along with the cultural, religious and other obstacles and punishments to these, and also of the myriad exigencies of a problematic modernity coupled with the formidable challenges of a very restless young population which is now gripped by the influences of devaluation, of MTV, and of an imbalanced digestion of African-American hip-hop culture. The Salut Cousin (1996) by Algerian Merzak Allouache, is skillfully done, blending comedy, spectacle and romance to project a poignant commentary about African migration to France and to offer a new vision and taste of African Arab romance and overall conveying a subdued message about solidarity between an Algerian fellow and a Senegalese woman. Likewise, the Chevaux De Fortune, a new film by Jilali Ferhati from Morocco, is a compelling achievement in the African cinema, wit its refreshing retake of the classic theme of the push and pull factors that are influencing the trends on emigration.

    Furthermore, it has been apparent among recent productions that a good number of them somehow continue and still build on the trends and orientations that were the hallmarks of the 1970s and 1980s, which are mainly the socio-political commentary, the interrogations about cultural practices and customs particularly their exploitative and abusive natures for individual profit, as well as the indictment o inequity and repression. For example, the Tableau Feraille, a 1996 film by Senegalese Moussa Sene Absa dwells on the questioning about culture, politics and gender contextualized against the globalizing and contemporary post-devaluation urban Senegal while Taafe Fanga, a 1997 film by Adama Drabo of Mali features a reversal form by using narrative and structuring device to question issues about gender in a strongly satirical but highly amusing way which makes it a very effective film in sending the message that it has been conceived to send. Drabos film inevitably provokes society to rethink of gender roles as being natural, precisely because it somehow teases and challenges for reconsideration about them as social constructs and thus are not natural at all. Immersing the audience into certain aspects of Dogon culture, Drabos film is similar in a way with that of Gaston Kabores Buud Yam which centrally revolves around the chronicling of the eco-cultural diversity of Burkina Faso, as depicted by the films character Wend Kuuni who goes on a quest to search for the medical practitioner to cure her adopted sister, Pognere. This sequel-like trend reveals a certain continuity in the African film subjects and styles, as can be drawn from the Buud Yam, from Mossane by Safi Faye, and from Po Di Sangio by Flora Gomes (1996), all of which go to the extent of digging deeply into their respective societies repertoire of myths and narrative styles in order to inform their films.

    Furthermore, African history as a subject continues to interest African filmmakers as they try to continue to make sense of the distant and recent pasts in ways that somehow send important messages across generations. Aside from the Les Silences Du Palais, an elegant film set in the time of the last Tunisian monarchs by Tunisian filmmaker Moufida Tlal, and Sankofa, which is a film on slavery by Haile Gerima, two young Ethiopian filmmakers have recently made significant contributions to the African film industry via two technically refined and analytically sophisticated reappraisals of the last two decades of the experiences of the Ethiopians with a dying feudal monarchy and a repressive military dictatorship.  Tumult, which is Yemane Demissies and Deluge by Salem Mekurias, both made in 1996, engage these interesting aspects of the Ethiopian experience using a great deal of invention, imagination, and nuances. Also worth mentioning is the new perspective presented about the Algerian war of independence through Rachida Krims acclaimed film Sous Les Pieds Des Femmes (Where Women Tread).

    Furthermore, subjects like dictatorship, violence, repression and struggles in their respective countries are tackled on films by a number of African filmmakers like Demissie, Mekuria and Krirn.  Cameroonian Jean-Marie Teno and by Balutu Kanyinda from the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) provide their detailed post-independence perspectives in their films. Clando by Teno in 1996 builds upon the foundation of his documentary works about the various aspects of life in Cameroon under two dictators, the former President Ahmadou Ahidjo and his successor Paul Biya, delving further into the repressive operations and the strategies used by people to resist and negotiate such forces both in Cameroon and among the Cameroonian immigrants in Germany. On the other hand, Balulus Le Damier, made in 1997, is undoubtedly one of the most inventive films from African cinema in recent years, featuring a fine blend of play, power and politics and ingeniously exploiting the liberating aspect of the popularly known game of draught, which is a version of chess, to symbolize the dynamics of his countrys political struggles.

    The more recent films such as Lumumba by Raoul Peck, La Gense by Cheikh Oumar Cissoko, Mossane by Safi Faye, Pices dIdentits by Ngangura Mweze, Mamlambo by Palesa Lelatkla-Nkosi, La Fume Dans Les Yeux by Francois Woukoache, Le Damier by Balufu Kanyinda, Les Silences du Palais by Moufida Tlatli, On the Edge and Rage by Newton Aduaka, and many others have maintained creativity as well as productive deployment of individual and local eccentricities and cultures to navigate the world, craftily maintaining their African uniqueness in the midst of globalizing trends all over the globe. Further, such works still bear the effectiveness that result from a skillful and critical use of new technologies to convey African experiences and other important cultural messages in various ways.

Such films have shown that instead of surrendering to an overbearing global norm and an attempt to live up to the globalization pressure of becoming Euro-American, as well as to the commercial expectations which could well turn out to be a dead end, they show purposeful and imaginative appropriation of the full range of resources and experiences of Africans - past and present - in their encounters with each other and with others from around the world.

    Globalization and its consequences and requirements especially on struggling nations like those in Africa can be overwhelmingly overbearing, cutting across the many facets of the society and strongly affecting different interests. The globalization effects in the African cinema have been felt strongly, especially on the film industrys commercial and political aspects, like taxation, legal ownership, as well as its funding concerns which have been feared to have been victims of globalization.

    However, in the analysis of the contents of various African films across generations and societies within the African continent, there is strong evidence that content-wise, the African cinema has remained unique and still untainted by pressures of becoming more commercially appealing by being more Western and tame. As the African filmmakers continue to produce films of substance and remain passionate about their original intent of celebrating Africa and sharing such messages to the rest of the world, there is no danger for the industry to become a victim of globalization.