African Screens (re)viewed from Lisbon
From June 27 to 29, 2013, the University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-IUL) will hold the 5th European Conference on African Studies (ECAS 2013). In parallel to the academic panels, there will be a film festival, the ECAScreenings, and a roundtable, The State of the Art: African Contemporary Cinema in Focus. BUALA is a partner of ECAScreenings in the publication of articles focused on cinema related to Africa. The articles are selected by Pedro Osório Graça.
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'Les saignantes', Jean-Pierre Bokolo
Representations of Africa tend to reproduce old stereotypes, adapted to recent trends but ultimately reproducing, even in postcolonial times, a largely negative and monolithic image of a diverse continent. The same can be said of cinema. A more or less consensual approach to “African cinema” associates it with exoticism, making it into a genre easily recognized by Western audiences. It is this idea of a backward, monolithic Africa that the curators of African Screens, Manthia Diawara and Lydie Diakhatí, intended to challenge. The provocative gesture can be found in the choice of the film screened at the inaugural session, Les saignantes, by Jean-Pierre Bekolo. The same applies to Juju Factory, by Balufu Bakupa Kanyinda. Both films question ideas of “authentic” representations of “Africanness,” introducing a complex cinematic language that shows how contemporary African film not only is diverse in its tendencies but also relates in diverse ways to different trans/national traditions and models.
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