Videoage International November 2019

From Cover 18 bean and inspire local filmmakers to produce a body of work so the region can take its rightful place on the international stage. The African film industry is primarily known as “Nollywood.” It originated in West Africa, primarily in Nigeria, but also includes Ghanian films that have Nigerian distribution. The crea- tion of Nollywood started in the 1960s. That was when the first Nollywood movies were being created by historical filmmakers such as Ola Ba- logun, Hubert Ogunde, Jab Adu, Moses Olaiya, and Eddie Ugbomah. They are considered the first generation of Nigerian filmmakers. The Nigerian film industry is the largest in Africa, the second largest film producer in the world. In 2016, Nigeria’s film industry contribu- ted 2.3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. Nollywood is a homegrown industry that is divided largely along regional, and marginally ethnic and religious lines. While English- language films are a melting pot for filmmaking and filmmakers from most of the regional industries, the Yoruba language from western Nigeria is of equal prominence. In northern Nigeria, the Hausa-language cine- ma, known informally as Kannywood, is also a branch of Nollywood. Hausa audiences, howe- ver, find Bollywood movies more attractive and have therefore given rise to a popular cinematic synthesis of Indian and Hausa culture. Nollywood filmmakers are very proud of what they have built and accomplished and do not seek approval or ask permission from other parts of the world, especially Hollywood. The Caribbean Film industry, on the other hand, fa- ces different challenges due to its proximity to the U.S. These challenges are sometimes magni- fied, adding to the pressures of producing quali- ty films. (By Dianne Bissoon*) * Dianne Bissoon A former marketing and content executive for Comcast, she was recruited by Cable & Wireless to launch its TV service, Lime TV, in 16 Caribbean islands. It was the region’s first IPTV service. She is one of the pioneers of the region’s first subscrip- tion-based OTT platform designed for Caribbean filmmakers. However, 83 percent of its subscribers come from the African continent. Bissoon was the co-creator and producer of TV series Walk Sacred, filmed on location in the U.S., Caribbean, and South Africa. She’s a supporter of many charities including CARE Foundation. Haitian cinema has been dominated by the work of Raoul Peck, who, like many other Caribbean filmmakers, operates from outside of the region, where he has access to funding and distribution. Peck grew up in Haiti and in the Congo, and his work reflects a commitment to these countries. One of his films was about the first prime minister of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba. Lumumba became an award-winning feature in 2000. In Dutch Antilles, producer/scriptwriter Nor- man de Palm from Aruba and director/designer Felix de Rooy from Curaçao have produced some of the most important Caribbean films. Two of their films were shot in Curaçao. Almacita di De- solato (1986) is a mythical story of Afro-Caribbe- an folklore and the fight between good and evil, and Ava and Gabriel (1990) is a critical depiction of such issues as race, class, religion, and sexua- lity in the Dutch colony of Curaçao in 1948. The French Antilles have produced a number of filmmakers of African descent, with Martini- quans Gabriel Glissant and Jean-Paul Césaire making short films and documentaries in the 1970s. However, it is Martiniquan filmmaker Euzhan Palcy who has made the greatest impact as a director. She received international reco- gnition as the first black woman to direct a Hol- lywood studio film, A Dry White Season (1989), which is set in apartheid South Africa in 1976, but it was her first film, Rue Cases Nègres (1983), adapted from Joseph Zobel’s novel of post-slave- ry plantation life, that established her as one of the foremost Caribbean directors. In the English-speaking Caribbean it would be foolhardy not to consider Perry Henzell’s pioneering The Harder They Come (1972), Ja- maica’s quintessential Caribbean feature film, because it was made by a white Jamaican. Simi- larly, American-born Hugh Robertson, who was married to a Trinidadian, made Bim in 1974, hi- ghlighting the tensions between the African and Indian communities as it portrayed one man’s struggle to come to terms with a society that alienated him. Jamaica has produced the most Caribbean films by far, thanks in part to its aggressive mar- keting and to the international appeal and po- pularity of reggae, the music that seems to drive every one of its films. Filmmaking by Afro-Caribbeans is largely a labor of love, since the logistical problems they face are almost overwhelming. Apart from Cuba (which has established a film institute and film school), most Caribbean countries are too pre- occupied with more pressing economic matters to commit money to the relatively high-cost un- dertaking of filmmaking. Foundation help is sparse and usually doled out for documentaries. Private industry looks at the poor returns on previous efforts and prefers to err on the side of caution, thus remaining in the shadow of Hollywood productions. Films made in Cuba and Martinique are hardly shown in Trinidad; films from the Dutch Antilles are more likely to be shown in Holland than in the Caribbean. Cuba, followed by Jamaica, has or- ganized annual film festivals to showcase new productions. It is the hope that such efforts will eventually spread throughout the entire Carib- conundrum wherein networks and studios clear Latin America rights for the region. Being pre- dominantly English-speaking, they tend to favor North American and British content. The African culture is deeply embedded in the modern history of the Caribbean, which began in the 15th century with the adoption of an eco- nomy based on sugarcane production. Under this system, enslaved black Africans were used as labor. It is estimated that some 12 million enslaved Africans came to the Caribbe- an between 1650 and 1850 during periods of co- lonization by the British, French, Spanish, Por- tuguese, and Dutch. The traumatic experience of slavery made the population adopt the artistic, musical, literary, culinary, political, and social elements of Africa. Films were also influenced by the true histo- rical identities of African cultural groups, such as the Igbo (Nigeria), Yoruba (Benin, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Liberia), Nupe (mostly in Uganda), and Malinke-Wangana (Ghana). Both North and Sub-Saharan Africa would play an in- fluential role in Caribbean cinema. Even though the Caribbean film market was dominated by the American film industry for decades, the region would eventually carve its own brand of cinema by making fun of the histo- rical, political, and social similarities between the U.S. and the Caribbean. In the Caribbean, parts of Sub-Saharan and Western African countries, such as Nigeria, used their common background of politics, social is- sues, history, oppression, and religion. This is why they also share similar ways of filmmaking and storytelling. Certainly, the most popular genre on TV is soaps. Other successful genres include dramas, comedies, and documentaries. On the other hand, while the cinema of Egypt is one of the oldest in the world, it is largely known for comedies and musicals. The first film screenings in the Caribbean were held in 1895, a little more than a year af- ter the emergence of film, and soon led to the development of cinemas throughout the region. Going to the cinema would prove to be a popular local pastime, as films increasingly captured the imagination of the Caribbean people. Almost all films were made outside the region; some pio- neering film directors lived in Cuba and Puerto Rico, and just a few lived in the English-speaking Caribbean. It was only from the 1950s onward that the Caribbean began to produce films on a consistent basis — first documentaries made mainly by government film units, and later in- dependently produced feature films. Only a few blacks can be found among the ma- jor filmmakers in Cuba, the region’s foremost film-producing country. Sara Gómez is impor- tant. She was not only the first black Cuban to direct a feature film but also the first woman. Her first and only feature film was De Cierta Manera (1974). This innovative film combined documentary and dramatic sequences, real pe- ople and professional actors, to describe the role of African-influenced religions and male chau- vinism in post-revolutionary Cuba. Tragically, Gómez died of asthma while the film was being edited. November 2019 Africa-Caribbean Links (Continued from Cover)