Africa films shatter the stereotypes

By Haig Balian

Most people who live in rich Western countries think of sub-Saharan Africans as living in abject poverty and mired in violence with little hope of escape.

A new film series organized by two Concordia University professors is hoping to complicate this perception.

As part of the Peace and Conflict Resolution series, Andrew Ivaska, a professor of modern African history, and Leonid Schneider, who teaches African politics, put together a program of eight films about the ways Africans are coping with their complex dilemmas.

The portrayal of Africa in the media tends to be sensationalistic, according to Ivaska.

“We want to begin to go beyond the narrow framing of African conflict,” he said. “We want to complicate the picture, and flesh out a much thicker social context.”

Instead of relying on “ancient ethnic hatreds” as a cause for the Rwandan genocide, one film challenges the audience to consider another explanation.

In 1994, the Hutu-dominated government of Rwanda launched a violent campaign against the Tutsi minority that resulted in the slaughter of over 800,000 people in 100 days. The documentary In Rwanda We Say… explores the genocide’s aftermath.

This film, made by the French director Anne Aghion and released last year, tells the story of how survivors of the genocide find themselves having their family’s killers as neighbours. Many perpetrators of the genocide were released from prison and turned over to community-based tribunals.

It is an uneasy situation and the film offers no easy answers, but viewers get a sense of just how interrelated the Hutus and Tutsis are.

With the exception of the first two films, both of which were directed by Aghion, the series is also a platform for African directors. These films are rarely circulated within or outside Africa.

“We want to try to showcase African voices,” Ivaska said. “We want to try to show ways in which African intellectuals and artists are portraying their conflicts.” The result is a series that explores the ways Africans are negotiating a diverse array of problems.

For example, Night Stop tells the story of truck drivers and the prostitutes who wait for them on Mozambique’s infamous Corridor of Death, a stretch of road where more than 30 per cent of the population is HIV positive.

O Herói follows the path of a veteran of Angola’s civil war as he tries to assimilate into civilian life.

Unlike other films in the series, O Herói has had its share of international exposure, having won the World Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Each film showing is followed with a talk by an expert. Afterwards the audience is encouraged to share their responses and impressions.

Two of the films have already been screened, and the results have been positive.

“We’ve been very happy with the way they’ve gone,” Ivaska said. “There’s a growing turnout. People have been willing to step up to the mike and speak.”

The series continues Nov. 10 with Daresalam at the D.B. Clarke Theatre, in the Hall Building.