another africa

found while looking through the photography section of strand books: another africa, with images by robert lyons and words by chinua achebe.

“In Another Africa renowned photographer Robert Lyons and internationally acclaimed author Chinua Achebe ahve joined together to explore the real Africa behind the stereotypes commonly held by Westerners. In a stunning series of photographs and poems, this work peels away myths to explore the complexity, diversity, and humanity of a place called Africa.”

observations from the african film festival/new york

random observations on moolaade and the hero that were part of the african film festival|new york that goes on this week.

– women as beasts of burden: repeating images of women carrying water, women carrying food, women carrying firewood, babies, etc.
– media, specifically the radio as central tool of information dissemination, education, entertainment and ultimately agent of social change; not the evil manipulator of culture as in the developed world.
– the multinational nature of the films both in production and in their casts. moolade was a french/senegalese/moroccan production shot in burkina faso with cast members drawn from a number of countries including senegal and burkina faso. the hero’s cast was angolan, portuguese, brazilian and senegalese with production being a portuguese/angolan partnership.

sebastiao salgado

economist/photojournalist/activist/UNICEF special representative sebastiao salgado is the photographer i hope to emulate in my work. although he photographs people at their bleakest time (doing manual labor, or as refugees of war, famine, poverty), the technical virtuosity of his images (quality of light, tonal quality of prints) elevates his work above photojournalism into art. it also ensures that the stories he is telling transcend the weekly/monthly time window of magazines, taking them into galleries and art books, thus providing other avenues to inform and change behavior.

salgado’s current project is called “genesis” where he is photographing landscapes and wildlife in what is left of the unspoiled world. the second part of the project has taken him to rwanda and the virunga national park. he recently went to antarctica for the the third part of the project.

more salgado goodness:
outcaste: displaced people of the world
multimedia new yorker piece on salgado
san francisco chronical piece on salgado

goings on about town, africa division*

this week starts the african film festival/new york at the walter reade theater in the lincoln center. i am having a hard time accessing the schedule pages for exact details(1), but among the highlights are the showing of ousmane sembene’s latest pic “molaade” a special showing of sotigui kouyate’s “keita” and at some point zeze gamboa’s “the hero” will show as well.

friday 4/29, roseland ballrom: the sister event to the film festival, the annual great african ball being headlined by king sunny ade. details here.

* apologies to the new yorker
(1) i am one of those mac folks and from my web development days i know little/no testing is done on mac/safari to make sure applications work right.

from the velds of zululand to broadway

in 1932 solomon linda recorded a song called “mbube” (zulu for lion) in the isicathamiya style for gallo records in johanesburg south africa. the song’s melody was based on that of a traditional song sang by zulu women during (after?) a lion hunt. thus began the saga of one of the world’s most recorded pieces of music, one that highlights the gap between the law and ownership of cultural artifacts like music.

while the current debate is being held in the context of technology (the “rip, mix and burn” ethic that is at the confluence of computers, file sharing and the internet) the story of”mbube” or “the lion sleeps tonight” as it is more commonly known plays out against the backdrop of apartheid and racism.

wnet’s independent lens aired a documentary on monday night, which narrated the efforts of solomon linda’s family to get compensation from american composer david weiss and others for use of the melody in their compositions (the lion sleeps tonight is used in disney’s broadway presentation of the lion king). they have had limited success so far despite the high profile that south african journalist rian malan has brought to the cause in his writing and activism.

land and freedom army story retold

the legacy of the mau mau is mixed at best. while the term mau mau is proxy for rebellion in some circles, the dominant image of the freedom fighters is of bloodthirsty natives who, unable to cope with modernity, reverted to their primitive nature. this is mostly because the story was told through the racist prism of settler hysteria at the height of the emergency in the 1950’s.

two recently published books have started to right that wrong. Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire by david anderson examines the record of those who were hanged by the colonial government to extract some facts about the time. carol elkin’s book Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of the End of Empire in Kenya compiles the story from a series of oral interviews from detainees and survivors.

summary of economist review of the two books:

By calling for reconciliation in the early years of his presidency, Kenyatta understandably sacrificed the past for the future. But today young Kenyans know next to nothing about the Mau Mau uprising and how it led to independence. For them, these books are an incomparable record of what happened in, and to, their country. For others, parallels with American foreign policy today are apparent enough. The lack of real accountability, the rough justice, ignoring international conventions, maltreating prisoners, detention without trial; in Kenya the British used them all.

see also:
enough is enough a film on the mau mau struggle set to premier on madaraka day.
hot sun films produces “the oath” on the mau mau using the jua kali approach to storytelling but not to the production values.

the story of zeng he

a chinese production company is currently in kenya filming a documentary on the chinese explorer zeng he who landed on the east african coast about 600 years ago.

new to me: there are a number of kenyans with chinese ancestry the result of intermarriage between the local bajunis and the chinese explorers. the history of the east african coast is endlessly fascinating.

township digital cinemas

Starting in September, Shout Africa will roll out 20 digital cinemas around the country where facilities are most lacking, to make the movies affordable and accessible. Shout Africa chief executive Lance Samuels says that for local producers, these cinemas will provide another distribution outlet as well as the opportunity to build new audiences.

Locally produced films in indigenous languages and English will be shown alongside foreign features, with subtitles in the vernacular language of the region of the cinema.Besides the usual popcorn and soft drinks, popular traditional township foods such as maize porridge, spicy sausages, samp (hominy), mealies (corn on the cob) and fried chicken will be on sale to help make the d-cinema experience more African.

via boing boing

the good news from africa cable channel

when The Africa Channel launches this july on us cable systems it plans to devote its 1200 hours of programming to showcase the other africa, the one that exists and thrives even with all the war and disease. the other africa that americans may not know about.

“Historically, if there had not been interest in the place, the colonial powers would not have plundered it or built the empires that they did,” Mr. Makawa said. “Modern-day Africans say it’s different now. They want to be heard and they want to participate in the global economy, but they can’t participate if people don’t know who they are.” james makawa one of the channel’s founders.

kofia tip kenyan pundit

dave blumenkrantz/africa

dave blumenkrantz | africa. photographs and journal entries from east and central africa spanning 1987 to 1994 by photojournalist/educator dave blumenkrantz while he was based in nairobi. of interest: general china’s burial ceremony: a journal entry on the famous mau mau general’s funeral politics and war: with images from the eritrean war, the rwandese genocide and “saba saba” riots in nairobi. from those images, i am getting a growing awareness of the fact that the nineties were a watershed decade for violence and death in africa.