The Essence of African Cinema: Diverging Media Ideologies in African Cinema.

Articles The Essence of African Cinema of arterialnetwork.org The Essence of African Cinema Diverging media ideologies in subSaharan African cinema By Manouchka Kelly Labouba Keywords African cinema, sub-Saharan film, FESPACO (Festival Panafricain du Cinéma de Ouagadougou), Fédération Panafricaine des Cinéastes (FEPACI), film formats, Nollywood, video film, Ousmane Sembène Media ideologies are a set of beliefs about communicative technologies with which users and designers explain perceived media structure and meaning. That is to say, what people think about the media they use will shape the way they use media. (Gershon 2010: 3) In The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting Over New Media, Ilana Gershon explains how crucial it is to determine people’s media ideologies when one seeks to understand how they communicate through different technologies. She writes: ‘how people understand the media they use, shapes the ways they will use it’ (Gershon 2010: 48). Below, I look at how the categories at the Festival Panafricain du Cinéma de Ouagadougou (better known as FESPACO) have been affected by the media ideologies of African ilm-makers. FESPACO is the biggest and most renowned African ilm festival. Created in 1969, the event quickly grew to establish itself as the continental venue to showcase the best of African cinema. The main architect of FESPACO was the Fédération Panafricaine des Cinéastes (FEPACI – Pan-African Federation of Filmmakers), an institution initially created to unite African ilm-makers. FEPACI designed the modes of functioning of the festival. It elaborated its basic rules, including the one stating that a ilm accepted in the oficial contest has [to meet] the following criteria: it is directed by an African, it is less than three years old, it is entering FESPACO for the irst time, and it is in a 16mm or 35mm format. (Diawara 1992: 131) This last requirement regarding ilm format is particularly interesting in light of the current nature of African cinema. Indeed, one of the major developments in the past twenty years has been the growth of a parallel industry symbolized by Nollywood, the fast-paced Nigerian video ilm industry. With more than 2,000 movies released per year, in terms of output, Nollywood represents the second largest ilm industry worldwide since 2009. The Nigerian phenomenon has managed the impressive tour-de-force of creating a seemingly viable movie industry for the irst time in sub-Saharan Africa. By doing so, Nollywood has convincingly demonstrated that the production of video ilms should legitimately be considered as the alternative par excellence to revive African cinema. Evidence is that the Nigerian model of intense video activity has been quickly imitated throughout the region, almost replacing ‘traditional cinema’ (that is to say, arthouse-celluloid African ilms) in countries such as Ghana, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Cameroon or Gabon. A whole new wave of African ilm-makers has emerged. They are local storytellers, who feel empowered by the new technology, and who make video ilms as a way to compensate for the low and irregular presence of African ictions on African screens (television and theatres). Yet, this boom in video production has not been unanimously embraced by all African ilm-makers. On the contrary, it has mostly created a palpable schism in African creation, which sees the cineastes (those who make celluwww.ilmint.nu | 79 Articles The Essence of African Cinema loid/theatrical ilms) compete with the videastes (those who make digital/straight-to-video ilms) in redeining African cinema. In a previous article, I highlighted the divergences between the two groups (Labouba 2012). Their disparities are apparent on how they approach and conceive of African cinema. Cineastes are guided by an art cinema approach. They are motivated by recognition at the international level, rather than at the domestic level. Their movies are generally produced with generous grants from Europe, in spite of the fact that they are not inancially viable. Those ilms rarely break even commercially, and are also more easily available outside the continent, in ilm libraries or academic institutions in North America and Europe. Videastes, on the other hand, are driven by more populist motivations, because their desire is to reach local audiences irst. They are mostly interested in making their money back, because their ilms are inanced locally by the directors themselves, or by patrons or by businessmen. For the most part, the movies produced by videastes are only available in their home countries. courtesy of en.wikipedia.org They do not often compete at big international ilm festivals because of their poor production values, since the majority of videastes are amateurs. This contrasts with cineastes who have been trained in ilm schools, and who attach a lot of prestige to their profession. Thus, cineastes represent a certain elite in African ilmmaking, while videastes are often associated with ‘bad image makers’, because of their amateurism, and the poor quality of many of their ilms. This ‘identity crisis in African cinema’ can be felt more than ever at FESPACO, which is divided into two separate competitions according to formats: the ilm section and the TV/Video section. The ilm section is really the main competition, awarding around ifteen prizes for features and three for shorts. The TV/Video section, on the other hand, is more of a ‘symbolic’ competition awarding just two prizes (best ilm and jury prize) for entries submitted on video/digital format. Apart from the diaspora category, it is the section giving out the least awards at FESPACO. Even categories such as ilm schools, documentaries or TV series hand out more prizes. The duties of the film-makers included the commitment to reclaim the cultural identity of Africans, reconstruct their cinematic image, and extend the liberation movement to the realm of film and culture. 80 | ilm international issue 72 Articles The Essence of African Cinema This imbalance comes from the fact that the festival’s organizers have always insisted on strictly applying the rules dictated by FEPACI. Therefore, a clear distinction has constantly been kept between projects made on celluloid and projects made on video, though FESPACO actually started to include its TV/Video category as early as 1993, in an honest effort to present a more comprehensive spectrum of the African audio-visual output. Nevertheless, the festival never really adjusted to the changes in the African audio-visual landscape. FESPACO established its TV/Video category when the Nollywood phenomenon was just starting to take off, and when celluloid was still the uncontested format for African features. In the new millennium, things have considerably changed in African audio-visual practices, with an overwhelming number of video ilms being made in comparison to celluloid movies. Still, the ilm section at FESPACO remains the most prestigious competition, though signiicantly more movies are submitted in the video category. During the 2011 edition of the festival, while videastes complained about their unfair treatment, cineastes deplored the poor quality of the oficial selection, as some video ilms were transferred onto celluloid for the sole purpose of entering the main competition. One of the most acerbic detractors of that edition was cineaste Mahamet-Saleh Haroun from Chad, who vehemently criticized ‘the mediocrity of the selection, with ilms that [had] no place [there], nor in any other festival’, and which only displayed what he qualiied as a ‘lack of respect for cinema and for the ilmmakers’ in competition (cited in Barlet 2011a: 135). Haroun became so upset, that he swore never to attend FESPACO again, calling it an ‘audiovisual festival’ (cited in Barlet 2011a: 135). Michel Ouedraogo, the Delegate General of the festival, responded to those heavy attacks by reminding critics that it was FEPACI that instated the rule imposing a selection on the basis of formats. In an interview with Olivier Barlet (2011b), this is what Ouedraogo had to say to defend his festival: OLIVIER BARLET (OB): Film in Africa today is more frequently digital than 35mm, but FESPACO insists on the latter for the feature competition. Why? Is that likely to change, or is it important to preserve 35mm? MICHEL OUEDRAOGO (MO): The FESPACO clauses date to 1969, we didn’t invent them, but we have to respect them. It is the African cinema professionals who must decide if there should be a change. OB: You mean the FEPACI (Federation of African Filmmakers)? of junegivanniilmarchive.org MO: Yes. FESPACO won’t decide in its place. But today the FEPACI is no longer representative. There needs to be a relection on the part of all the African cinema professionals. But FESPACO is well placed to know that not all the ilmmakers share the same opinion on this question of formats. A unanimous, consensual position needs to be found and that’s not yet the case. So we still apply the position that was unanimous and consensual at the time. By maintaining that rule at FESPACO, FEPACI, which originally aimed at uniting ilm-makers, started to symbolize the divide in African cinema. For more than four decades, the organization never attempted a change of regulation at FESPACO. Thus, the format requirement was upheld as the written criterion to legitimate the overall exclusion of video ilms from the main competition. It was not until the end of the 2013 edition that a consensus was inally reached in order to drop the rule, and virtually open up the main competition to video ilms from 2015 on, though they will have to be submitted as a DCP ile (Digital Cinema Package).1 Why did it take 44 years to change this format requirement? I believe it has to do with the diverging media ideologies of African ilm-makers, because in his interview with Olivier Barlet, Michel Ouedraogo does not convincingly explain why the competition in the TV/Video section is so drastically different from the one in the ilm www.ilmint.nu | 81 Articles The Essence of African Cinema Nigerian film-makers have managed to re-seize ownership of their cinematic image by liberating their creativity, and by adjusting their means of production to their economy. section. Why are there so few prizes awarded, while in the main competition awards exist for acting, screenwriting, music and even poster? Ouedraogo does not comment on those issues, and that might be because format is not the only reason why video ilms are alienated as such at FESPACO. Though the irst edition of the Semaine du Cinéma Africain in Ouagadougou in 1969 had the objective of showing that there existed an African cinema ‘made in Africa, by Africans, on African subjects’ (Diawara 1992: 129), FESPACO has never been very welcoming to the types of movies that Nollywood and videastes manufacture. The great majority of video ilms, especially those made by Nollywood, rarely get to compete at the festival, and for the few that do get selected, being relegated to the ‘catchall’ TV/Video section because of their format, is a very unsubtle way by FESPACO to signal that the festival does not consider them as ‘real’ ilms. ‘Snobbery is to blame for their exclusion,’ writes Umaru Fofana (2007). ‘You don’t have Nollywood movies here because of the discrimination against the kind of movies that we do from those who package this festival,’ complains Mahmoud Alie Balogun, a Nigerian ilm-maker (cited in Fofana 2007). Carmen McCain insightfully writes that by clinging to old structures of ilmmaking and prioritizing celluloid over a form that is more easily accessible to a broader base of ilmmakers [the Pan-African festival that FESPACO is, fails to recognize] a movement that is establishing the very industry FEPACI was formed to promote. (McCain 2011: 257) Baba Hama (Delegate General of FESPACO from 1996 to 2008) responded to those types of attacks by simply asserting: ‘I do not think it is Nollywood’s objective to come to our festivals’ (cited in Fofana 2007). Actually, in my opinion, it might rather be that it is not the objective of FESPACO to have Nollywood come to the festival. As far as I am concerned, I suspect that Nollywood movies are generally excluded from FESPACO, because of the organizers’ sentiment that with their poor production values, and their populist ambitions, those ilms depart too much from the ‘essence of African cinema’ as deined by FEPACI and Ousmane Sembène in the early days of African ilm-making. 82 | ilm international issue 72 The essence of African cinema In 2007, Ousmane Sembène passed away after four solid decades of a career dedicated to African cinema. He came to prominence in 1966 as the very irst ilm-maker from sub-Saharan Africa to direct a feature ilm on the continent. His directorial debut Black Girl (La Noire de…, 1966) was released in the years following the wave of African independences of 1960, during which seventeen countries gained their autonomy. Among them was Senegal, Sembène’s homeland. Thus, Ousmane Sembène’s cinematic involvement resonated early on with the administrative sovereignty granted to his country, as he took advantage of the new freedoms gained by Africans, including the right to depict themselves. He decided to make movies with the ambition to decolonize the minds and the screens of Africa, in order to lead the struggle for liberation in the cinematic ield. Black Girl tells the poignant story of Diouana, a young Senegalese woman who is brought to France by her employers. However, upon her arrival on French soil, she becomes aware that she has been misled. Originally asked to come as a nanny for the kids, and care for them the way she did back in Dakar, Diouana realizes that she is expected to serve as a maid. In France, she loses her status as an independent Senegalese woman and returns to a position similar to that of a black slave. Feeling deceived and limited by her illiteracy, Diouana sees death as her only way to regain her freedom. Powerless to change her situation, she tragically kills herself, as a form of silent protest to her slave-like condition in France. With Black Girl, Sembène deined for Africans and for the rest of the world what the essence of African cinema should be: the ability to tell African stories from a liberated African perspective. In July 1969, he was among the founding members of FEPACI, an institution established with the agenda to organize and unite African ilm-makers around that cause. As the ‘father of African cinema’, Sembène became the natural moral leader of many generations of cineastes at FESPACO, up until his death at the age of 84. The political ilm-maker that he was, led the way for a militant African cinema that intended to assert its cultural emancipation, along with the physical decolonization of its territory. Because he was also a literate artist, a novelist-turned-ilm-maker who went to ilm school in the Soviet Union, Sembène had Articles The Essence of African Cinema a very didactic approach to ilm. He conceived of cinema as a ‘night school’, as an instrument to educate African populations in the postcolonial era. For him, ilm was the perfect tool to overcome the barriers of education and illiteracy, in order to reach the African masses. He turned to movie-making when he realized that access to his literary work was limited to a small educated elite, while he intended to make it as popular as possible. He explained: In the current situation of chronic illiteracy prevailing in Africa, it’s more pragmatic to make a movie than write a novel. With cinema, I can reach more people in one night than any preacher in a mosque or a church, or any politician during a meeting. (cited in Gadjigo 2010: 131) Therefore, Ousmane Sembène’s background explains his idealism, and his didactic take on cinema. Because he was such an erudite person, he believed that he had a responsibility to educate his fellow Africans. Life taught him ‘that the priority, for every colonized African, was the liberation of his country’, which implied ‘taking part in the people’s struggle for national independence and social revolution’ (Gadjigo 2010: 142). Sembène knew that the subconscious of Africans had been manipulated by the colonizers. That is why he utilized cinema with great didacticism, in order to pass on his knowledge to the African masses, and liberate them from mental subordination. Below Black Girl (1966) At irst, it appears that ‘Sembène’s cinema’ and its moral mission strongly deviates from ‘Nollywood cinema’, in which amateurs take up movie-making because they are driven by commercialism. Sembène’s objectives seem incompatible with those of videastes, and the fact that their ilms are made on different formats, has provided cineastes, scholars and critics with the perfect symbolic illustration of their dissimilarities. Yet, I argue that the debates concerning how Nollywood and videastes are redeining African cinema have focused too much on the medium they were using, and on how they were using it, rather than on the essence of their intrinsic motivations, which in theory are closer to Sembène’s than is commonly believed. Indeed, when one compares their ideals, as well as what guides their desire to create the types of ilms they make, it appears that Sembène and videastes have actually been sharing the same fundamental ambitions. Deep down, both entities have been attempting to reach the African masses with a popular cinema. They only chose different ways to do it: while Sembène adopted didacticism, videastes opted for populism. In my opinion, it is really just their stylistic approach that truly separates them. ‘Our style of telling stories is different to their style of telling stories,’ declares Mahmoud Alie Balogun (cited in Fofana 2007). He is right. Videastes do not attempt to teach their audience anything. On the contrary, they are merely trying to entertain them with compelling African narratives. Videastes deduced that didacticism www.ilmint.nu | 83 Articles The Essence of African Cinema was unsuitable with a popular approach, and that in the movie business, populism went hand in hand with commercialism. Nollywood ilm-makers realized that there was a genuine domestic market for popular African ictions, and that it was principally theirs to claim. They have inspired a big wave of videastes by demonstrating that the key to commercial success was to create ‘entertaining’ and ‘pleasurable’ African ilms for African audiences. This new generation of ilm-makers has found in the Nigerian video industry an inspiring example to follow, which is no longer personiied by an individual but instead by a model. For them, Nollywood has redeined the essence of African cinema as the ability to tell African stories, from an African perspective, and for African audiences. In reality, Sembène dreamt of creating a veritable popular African cinema, liberated from western inluence at all levels. When looking at it closer, isn’t it exactly what videastes are doing? But even more than Sembène, they are truly providing African masses with a cinema of their own. Their movies are topical, and grounded in African realities. Their output is targeted at a broad audience, and distributed, in the case of Nollywood, in the largest local popular markets. Ironically, thanks to their amateurism, and oftentimes their lack of ilm education, videastes are aesthetically more liberated than Sembène was, or than other cineastes are in general. Indeed, videastes equate their freedom to depict themselves, with the freedom to have less to 84 | ilm international issue 72 Below Black Girl (1966) prove artistically.2 Ultimately, the goal of videastes is to reach the largest audience possible, and for that purpose an ‘imperfect cinema’ is acceptable. Even FEPACI agreed with that principle at its beginnings. An imperfect cinema In the 1970s, in prolongation of the Third Cinema manifesto written by Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, FEPACI demanded from African ilm-makers that they regain control of their image, and liberate the imagination of Africans. The organization requested a ‘cinema of duty’, a ‘cinema with a mission’ to work towards the cultural decolonization of the African masses. The duties of the ilm-makers included the commitment to reclaim the cultural identity of Africans, reconstruct their cinematic image, and extend the liberation movement to the realm of ilm and culture. The cultural domination of the West was deemed ‘dangerous for being insidious’, because it imposed on African people, ‘models of behavior and systems of values whose essential function [was] to buttress the ideological and economic ascendency’ of western models.3 The followers of Third Cinema were asked to reject the aesthetic, cultural and economic standards of First Cinema (commercial) and Second Cinema (auteur). One of the seminal texts of the movement was ‘For an Imperfect Cinema’ written by Julio García Espinosa in Articles The Essence of African Cinema of discoverafricancinema.com Nollywood has achieved what Sembène and FEPACI wished to do, but failed to concretize. 1979. Espinosa, a Cuban ilm-maker who participated in his nation’s cinema of revolution, also served as the director of the Cuban Institute of Film Art and Industry (ICAIC). ICAIC was the national body that enabled the Cuban government to spread its revolution through ilm, similar to what FEPACI set up to do in Africa. In his essay, Espinosa (1979) exhorts ilm-makers to contribute to the ‘liberation of the private means of artistic production’. He urges them to create ‘a new poetics for the cinema’, which will ‘above all, be a “partisan” and “committed” poetics, a “committed” art, a consciously and resolutely “committed” cinema – that is to say, an “imperfect” cinema’. He explains how an imperfect cinema is not seeking for quality in an artist’s work, but is instead predominantly interested in ‘how an artist responds to the following question: what are you doing in order to overcome the barrier of the “cultured” elite audience which up to now has conditioned the form of your work?’ For Julio García Espinosa, an imperfect cinema ‘is no longer interested in quality or technique’, because ‘the new outlook for artistic culture is no longer that everyone must share the taste of a few, but that all can be creators of that culture’. Thus, similar to its Cuban counterpart, in its early days African cinema deined itself as a popular cinema of liberation. Therefore, the directives from FEPACI never excluded the creation of an ‘imperfect cinema’. On the contrary, it was actually seen as a liberatory necessity. Third World ilm-makers in particular were prompted ‘to put aside the conceptions and ilm production means of the capitalist countries and to seek new forms, taking into account the authenticity and the realities of the economic means and possibilities of the Third World countries’.4 FEPACI insisted that the issue for African cinema should not be to try to catch up with the developed capitalist societies, but rather to allow the masses to take control of the means of their own development, giving them back the cultural initiative by drawing on the resources of a fully liberated popular creativity.5 It seems to me that this is precisely what Nollywood has been doing for more than twenty years now. Nigerian ilm-makers have managed to re-seize ownership of their cinematic image by liberating their creativity, www.ilmint.nu | 85 Articles The Essence of African Cinema and by adjusting their means of production to their economy. As a result, they have emancipated themselves from the West at all levels: structurally, economically and culturally. They have succeeded in creating a genuine popular African cinema. The accomplishments of those ilm-makers were only made possible, because they accepted to have what is considered an ‘imperfect cinema’ in western standards. Consequently, Nollywood has achieved what Sembène and FEPACI wished to do, but failed to concretize. Though in theory, FEPACI and Sembène truly desired to reach the African masses, in practice they were mostly the proponents of a certain quality in the cinemas coming from Africa. Their approach resulted in the practice of an ‘intellectualized cinema’ by cineastes. After all, wasn’t Ousmane Sembène also declared the irst African auteur? He even adapted three of his novels into ilms.6 In this respect, he is actually responsible for the appropriation of African cinema by a certain elite of artists, who were trained in Europe, and decided to represent Africa at prestigious international ilm festivals. But, instead of trying to connect with the African masses at the continental level, those cineastes focused more on presenting a new auteurism in African ilm-making. Media ideologies Determining people’s media ideologies is crucial when you are trying to igure out the ways that people communicate through different technologies. – Ilana Gershon (2010) So what media ideologies do cineastes and videastes have towards their medium? Celluloid ilm stock is very dificult to access and to use in Africa, but the fact that cineastes choose it as their medium of predilection, evidently communicates their high culture stance. For them, working with celluloid represents the prestige they attach to their profession. That is why they were not willing to simply let the amateur videastes compete by their side in FESPACO’s main competition. Similarly, the media ideology that cineastes have with celluloid reveals that they are no longer preoccupied with trying to connect with African people. If that was the case, they would have to switch to video/digital formats like videastes, in light of the declining state of the celluloid industry on the continent (very few working theatres, lack of trained technicians, lack of equipment, lack of laboratories, expensive format, and so on). Yet, they stick to celluloid, because it gives their work a certain quality stamp, and it also makes them stand out as the elite in African cinema. It is this cur86 | ilm international issue 72 rent generation of cineastes, with auteurs such Mahamet-Saleh Haroun (Chad), or Abderrahmane Sissako (Mauritania), that actually seems to have abandoned Sembène’s ideals more than videastes. Videastes, on the other hand, have never seen celluloid as the appropriate format to create cinema in Africa. They chose video instead, because it was relatively cheap, accessible, easy to use, and it enabled them to release ilm at a signiicantly faster pace. For amateur videastes, time is money, video saves time, thus money. This is the media ideology they attach to their medium. But should they be condemned for their pragmatism? Contrary to what is commonly accepted, videastes are actually bringing African cinema back to its veritable essence, and to Sembène’s true ideals. Consequently, the debates around celluloid and video formats are just distracting from the real intentions that guide those ilm-makers. The identity of African cinema should not be deined by formats, but rather by the motivations of the creators. In this respect, videastes are the ones who are still trying to be true to the essence of African cinema, as it was irst illustrated by Sembène in his directorial debut. Last but not least, because most exhibitors in North America and Europe have been converting to digital cinema, the worldwide celluloid industry has declined drastically in the past decade, to the extent that ilm-making in 35mm has mostly become extinct. Apart from high-proile directors such as Christopher Nolan or Quentin Tarantino, most ilm-makers in the world cannot afford to shoot on celluloid anymore (35mm cameras are no longer manufactured, ilm labs are scarcer and more expensive, 35mm theatres are quickly disappearing). The emblematic format now belongs to niche sectors in the ilm world such as cinematheques, archives, or museums. Consequently, even African cineastes have started using digital cameras to shoot their ilms, as did Moussa Touré with La Pirogue (2012), Mahamat-Saleh Haroun with Gigris (2013) and Abderrahmane Sissako with Timbuktu (2014). Nevertheless, those cineastes have still valued prestige more than populism. Their ilms have remained art-house artifacts most circulated, and appreciated in the West.7 Hence, though their medium of predilection has changed, cineastes' ideologies have undoubtedly stayed the same. Contributor’s details Manouchka Kelly Labouba is a University of Southern California Provost’s Ph.D. fellow in the Division of Cinema & Media Studies at the School of Cinematic Articles The Essence of African Cinema Arts. She is also an independent director/screenwriter/ producer from Gabon (Central Africa), where she became the irst woman to direct a work of iction with her 40-minute short Le Divorce (2008). Her ilms have been selected in oficial competition at FESPACO, the Carthage Film Festival, the Montreal Pan Africa Film Festival and the Ecrans Noirs Film Festival. She pursues a dual career as a scholar and as a ilm-maker. References Bakari, Imruh and Cham, Mbye (eds) (1996), African Experiences of Cinema, London: BFI. Larkin, Brian (2008), Signal and Noise: Media, Infrastructure, and Urban Culture in Nigeria, Durham: Duke University Press. McCain, Carmen (2011), ‘FESPACO in a Time of Nollywood: The Politics of the ‘Video’ Film at Africa’s Oldest Festival’, Journal of African Media Studies, 3: 2, pp. 241–61. Pfaff, Françoise (ed.) (2004), Focus on African ilms, Bloomington: Indiana Press University. Saul, Mahir and Austen, Ralph (eds) (2010), Viewing African Cinema in the Twenty-irst Century: Art Films and the Nollywood Video Revolution, Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. Ukadike, Nwachukwu Frank (1994), Black African Cinema, Berkeley: University of California Press. Barlet, Olivier (2000), African Cinemas: Decolonizing the Gaze, New York: Zed Books. ––––– (2011a), ‘“This Is the Last FESPACO I’ll Be Coming To’: An Interview with Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’, Black Camera: An International Film Journal, 3: 1, pp. 134–40. ––––– (2011b), ‘“The Way to Help Us Is to Give Us Our Funding on Time!’: An Interview with Michel Ouedraogo, Delegate General of FESPACO’, Black Camera: An International Film Journal, 3: 1, pp. 141–45. Endnotes 1. Interestingly at the beginning of the 2013 edition, the short ilm section, which also used to only include celluloid ilms, was opened to video submissions with signiicantly less format restrictions. Barrot, Pierre (2009), Nollywood: The Video Phenomenon in Nigeria, Bloomington: Indiana Press University. 2. However, many of them do have higher ambitions, which begin to get recognized by awards ceremonies such as the African Movie Academy Awards or the Best of Nollywood Awards. Diawara, Manthia (1992), African Cinema: Politics and Culture, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 3. Excerpts from the Algiers Charter on African Cinema (1975) (cited in Bakari and Cham 1996: 25). ––––– (2010), African Film: New Forms of Aesthetics and Politics, New York: Prestel. 4. Excerpt from the Resolutions of the Third World Filmmakers’ Meeting in Algiers (1973) (cited in Bakari and Cham 1996: 23). Espinosa, Julio García (1979), ‘For an Imperfect Cinema’, Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, 20, pp. 24–26, https://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/ JC20folder/ImperfectCinema.html. Accessed 3 July 2015. Fofana, Umaru (2007), ‘Nollywood Drought at Fespaco’, BBC News, 3 March, https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ africa/6412161.stm. Accessed 29 July 2015. Gadjigo, Samba (2010), Ousmane Sembène: The Making of a Militant Artist, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Gershon, Ilana (2010), The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting Over New Media, New York: Cornell University Press. Labouba, Manouchka Kelly (2012), ‘Videastes vs. Cineastes, Sub-Saharan African Cinema and Its “Schizophrenic Industry”’, Spectator, 32: 2, pp. 8–19. 5. Excerpts from the Algiers Charter on African Cinema (1975) (cited in Bakari and Cham 1996: 25). 6. Black Girl (1966), The Money Order (Mandabi, 1968) and Xala (1975). Black Girl is adapted from his 1962 collection of short stories entitled Voltaïque: La Noire de… et autres nouvelles (translated to English as Tribal Scars in 1975). The Money Order is adapted from his 1966 novella Le mandat, précédé de Vehi-Ciosane (translated to English as The Money-Order with White Genesis in 1987), and Xala is adapted from the eponymous novel published in 1973. 7. All three ilms were selected at the Cannes ilm festival: La Pirogue in the section Un Certain Regard, Grigris and Timbuktu went on to become the irst ilm by a Sub-Saharan black ilmmaker to be nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign language ilm. www.ilmint.nu | 87 Copyright of Film International (16516826) is the property of Intellect Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.