AFRICAN WOMEN IN CINEMA: AN OVERVIEW

BETI ELLERSON

African cinema born during the African independence movements of the 1950s and 1960s re-appropriated the camera as a tool to counter the colonialist gaze that had dominated representations of Africa up until that time. The emergence of women in African cinema coincided with this nascent period during which a cadre of film professionals positioned themselves for the creation of a veritable African cinema culture. One such professional of note is the pioneer of Senegalese media culture, Annette Mbaye d'Erneville: feminist, journalist, writer, communications specialist, media activist and culture critic. The first Senegalese to earn a degree in journalism, she studied in Paris in the late 1940s, and since returning to Senegal in 1957 she has devoted her life to the cultural politics of the country, forging important institutions such as the Association Sénégalaise de la Critique Cinématographique, Rencontres Cinématographiques de Dakar (RECIDAK), and the Henriette Bathily Women's House.

Similarly, Guadeloupean Sarah Maldoror, who was born and raised in France, joined forces with artists from Africa and the Caribbean during a time of heightened cultural, intellectual and political discovery. In the early 1960s she went to Moscow to study filmmaking. Having already joined the pro-independence movements, it is not surprising that her films would take on similar anti-colonialist themes. She has been a mentor and role model to many African women filmmakers, notably Togolese Anne-Laure Folly Reimann, whose film Sarah Maldoror ou la nostalgie de l'utopie (1998) traces her own life as filmmaker engagée.

Several women were among the film professionals who established the Pan African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO) and the Pan African Federation of Filmmakers (FEPACI), both created in 1969. These two exemplary African cinema institutions continue to be a reference for continental co-operation and organisation in the area of culture. Zalika Souley, trailblazing actress from Niger, served on the founding committee of FEPACI, while Burkinabé Alimata Salembéré, one of the founding members of FESPACO, and whose compatriot Odette Sangho was also a member, presided over the organising committee of the first festival. The documentary Tam Tam à Paris, made in 1963 by journalist Thérèse Sita-Bella, was among the entries at the festival and is considered the earliest film by an African woman. Four years later, in 1967, Ghanaian dramatist and writer Efua Sutherland collaborated with the US television network ABC in the production of Arabia: The Village Story, a major documentary film. These pioneering women continued in their respective fields of journalism and drama, having made only one film, a common practice among the women who also utilise the moving image as a mode of expression in their chosen career. Moreover, recent developments in the seminal organisations FESPACO and FEPACI attest to the desire to continue to include women in key decision-making positions. Seipati Bulane-Hopa of South Africa served as general secretary of FEPACI from 2006 to 2013, and at the 23rd edition of FESPACO, in 2013, women took on leadership roles – one of them as president of the main juries. At the same edition, Alimata Salembéré was in the spotlight as guest of honour, in recognition of her pioneering role in the organisation.

The 1960s also witnessed the first World Festival of Black Arts, a seminal event hosted in Senegal in 1966, during which Safi Faye, Senegalese film director and ethnologist, and the first sub-Saharan African woman to direct a commercially distributed feature film, would enter a world that would change the course of her career (Pfaff 2004).

The 1970s, a decade of unprecedented global focus on women, heralded a call to action in all spheres of women's lives: the declaration of the United Nations Decade of Women (1976–1985); the evolution of a universal women's rights movement; and the maturation of second-wave feminism, which would influence the development of women's studies in the academy, feminist film theory and a critical inquiry into the visual representation of women all brought about global changes. A noteworthy development during the decade was the emergence of the bilingual feminist research group the Association of African Women for Research and Development (AAWORD), created in 1977 and based in Senegal. Moreover, from this defining decade emerged a sustained presence of African women filmmakers. Pioneer Safi Faye recalls the curiosity in the early 1970s around her enrolment at the École Nationale Supérieure Louis-Lumière in Paris as the first African woman to attend the prestigious film school.

The internationality of the UN Decade of Women engendered the notion of a global sisterhood, though not without tension – at five-year intervals (1975, 1980, 1985) three conferences were convened on three continents, in America, Europe and Africa (Mexico City, Copenhagen, and Nairobi respectively). With it came a flurry of research, conferences, reports and monographs, reflecting the diverse experiences of women around the world. For example, in 1978 women scholars throughout the African continent participated in a study visit organised by...