Mambo Africa - <b>Reclaiming the Icons – the Shape of New African Cinema-Editorial</b>

The Senegalese filmmaker creates a rich and humane drama of a community split along gender and generational lines when confronted with change. Colle (Fatoumata Coulibaly), the tough-minded second wife of a village elder, is leading a rebellion against an age-old practice. But the lessons the tale has for progress and change reverberate far across the continent.

The focal point and metaphor of the conflict between the sexes in the village becomes the new transistor radios that traders bring from big towns. The men tend to do their business in white robes and the cool shadows of the tress. The women, meanwhile toil daily in the bright red sun. During the evenings they increasingly seek entertainment and information through the radios that they have saved enough to buy.

One Friday, after prayers, in the village square, the men determine that the radios are planting dissent and spreading radical ideas among the women. The radios are seized, placed in a pile in the center of the square and become the symbol of dominant patriarchy.

That night, unable to sleep because of the heat and the absence music from the radio, the seed of revolution is born among the women. Sembene turns the new technology into an icon for the women’s struggle.

From the days when film started, with the invention first motion picture camera in 1895, by the Frenchman Louis Lumiere, it was seen as an industrial art. This was because the new scientific technologies combined both light and movement for the first time in the propagation of the image and its replication. This made it a new mass medium with the ability to impact audiences far more powerfully than any other.

Not only could millions be reached but - a new way of telling stories and creating myths was born.

Battleship Potemkin, became one of the most definitive films from this early cinema period. Created in the Soviet Union in 1926 by Sergei Eisenstein, it told the story of a brutally suppressed uprising of soldiers in 1905, unhappy with living conditions in Czarist Russia.

Stalinist authorities understood that the film was a powerful tool to propagate and sell the purported new myth, success and heroism of the Russian Revolution to its citizens.

In Africa, today, we well understand the damage that has been wrought by the destruction of our myths by colonial systems. When we talk of decolonizing the mind it is because it is in our psyche that the greatest damage to our self-confidence and pride has been inflicted.

Jomo Kenyatta once remarked that when the British came they had the book, the bible that is, and we had the land… now we have the book, he went onto add, and they have the land.

Kenya’s first president was making the point that it was by wrenching us from cultural practices and systems of belief that the colonialists were able to effectively carry out their mission of dominant exploitation.

Today, globalization and the proliferation of western media are creating new images and icons for us that are once again far removed from our conscious existence.

The challenge for filmmakers and artists therefore, is how to appropriate and create representations that reflect realities appropriate to audiences in Africa. Equally challenging is the need to find platforms and avenues where their works can be seen and distributed.

Recently, the director Shyam Benegal visited Kenya. He is credited as being one of the fathers of New Indian Cinema, who challenged the Bollywood norms of extravagance and escapism and tackled issues affecting ordinary Indians. His numerous films have captivated audiences with themes of rural poverty, caste exploitation, violence and prostitution.

He warned against expecting Bollywood or even Hollywood to descend on African countries with their capital to build local cinema industries. It is perhaps for this reason that despite the fact Kenya has enjoyed a reputation in the region as a favored location for a number of foreign films in the past, that little innovation has taken place in the industry.

What, if any, is the impact of such productions as Tomb Raider – Cradle of Life going to be on local filmmakers and narratives? Even such films as the Constant Gardner, which tackles corrupt practices my multinational pharmaceuticals, leave a sour taste in the mouth. Many of the scenes shot in Nairobi’s slums were edited out so that the story could focus on the European heroes and heroines.

East and Central Africa has almost 200 million Kiswahili speakers - as large a market as any. Why asked Mr. Benegal are films not being produced in that language? Why has no film been made on Jomo Kenyatta – one of the greatest heroes of African liberation struggles?

Across the continent, we may lament the poor cinematography of Nigerian films, but they have carved a niche that is captivating audiences and has proved commercially viable. Perhaps it is because they have developed their own unique style, given birth to a cast of now easily identifiable actors or are addressing themes that resonate across the Africa, that they have become successful.

In Moolaade, Sembene, imagines progress toward increased equality among all Africans, across races, genders, nations and generations. It is an example of humanist African film at its finest and it has its own inimitable style. Like the ladies of the village who win back their radios at the end of the film, African filmmakers need to define the struggles of their people and reclaim the medium as their own.