African Film

African Film:
Looking Back and Looking Forward

Edited by

Foluke Ogunleye
 African Film: Looking Back and Looking Forward,
Edited by Foluke Ogunleye

This book first published 2014

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2014 by Foluke Ogunleye and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-4438-5497-2, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-5497-9

 To

Segun Ogunleye

My husband, best critic and encourager

 CONTENTS

Introduction ................................................................................................. 1
Foluke Ogunleye

Chapter I ...................................................................................................... 5
Ghanaian Cinema: A Historical Appraisal
Kwaw Ansah

Chapter II ................................................................................................... 13
Nigerian Film: Looking Backward and Looking Forward
Afolabi Adesanya

Chapter III ................................................................................................. 20

South African Film: Looking Back and Looking Forward
John R. Botha

Chapter IV ................................................................................................. 35
Nollywood: The Audience as Merchandise
Hyginus Ekwuazi

Chapter V .................................................................................................. 46
Recapturing a Nation’s Fading Memory through Video: An Analysis
of ‘Chimurenga’ Videos
Tendai Chari

Chapter VI ................................................................................................. 66
Filmmaking in Kenya: An Appraisal
Foluke Ogunleye

Chapter VII ................................................................................................ 69

A Historical Voyage through Kenyan Film
Wanjiru Kinyanjui

Chapter VIII .............................................................................................. 75

‘Unpacking the Hotel’: A Study of the Cinematic Politics
of Hotel Rwanda
Nyasha Mboti
viii Contents

Chapter IX ................................................................................................. 95
Women in Moroccan Cinema: Between Tradition and Modernity
Aziz Chahir

Chapter X ................................................................................................ 108

Counter-Hegemony in Ghanaian Video-Film Practice
Vitus Nanbigne

Chapter XI ............................................................................................... 125

Nigerian Video-Films on History: Love in Vendetta and the 1987
Kano Riots
Francoise Ugochukwu

Chapter XII .............................................................................................. 136

Women and Politics in Nollywood: A Challenge to Film Producers
in the 21st Century
Agatha Ukata

Chapter XIII ............................................................................................ 156

A Nation’s Present in the Past: Lighting the Blurred Future
through Filming
Busuyi Mekussi

Chapter XIV ............................................................................................ 171

Migrating Nollywood: Melting Borders in Tunde Kelani’s Abeni
Jendele Hungbo

Chapter XV.............................................................................................. 183

Issues of Picture-Right Ownership in Nigerian Video-Film
Julius-Adeoye ‘Rantimi Jays

Chapter XVI ............................................................................................ 192

Racism in the Jungle Adventure Film
Charles Uji and Oluwaseun Adesina

Chapter XVII ........................................................................................... 212

Fashion and Films: The Nigerian Example
Toyin Ogundeji
 African Film: Looking Back and Looking Forward ix

Chapter XVIII.......................................................................................... 222

Thematic Developments in Nigerian Video-films
Kwaghkondo Agber

Chapter XIX ............................................................................................ 232

A Historical Overview of the Ugandan Film Industry
Dominica Dipio

Notes on Contributors.............................................................................. 256

2nd Ife International Film Festival in Pictures ........................................ 260

Index ........................................................................................................ 278

 INTRODUCTION

FOLUKE OGUNLEYE, PH.D.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, IFE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

It gives me great pleasure to present to you this volume, which

comprises of peer reviewed articles from the second edition of the Ife
International Film Festival. Films are cultural artefacts created by specific
cultures, which reflect those cultures, and in turn, affect them. Film is
considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment
and a powerful method for educating - or indoctrinating - citizens. The
visual elements of cinema give motion pictures a universal power of
communication (“Film”, 2011). However, making films, reviewing them,
studying and theorizing them is hard work, although this might sound
incredible because of the glamour inherent in the stars’ lifestyles. Thomas
Edison, the great inventor of the electrical age, who helped to refine and
develop motion picture cameras, made the famous statement: “Genius is
one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” This
publication acknowledges all those filmmakers and film scholars, who
through their productions and theorization, have made a difference to the
filmic universe in Africa. Their substantial contribution reflects our world
and has the potential to change our lives.
The theme chosen for the 2nd Ife International Film Festival, ‘African
Film - Looking Back and Looking Forward’, is of particular importance in
that it interrogates the past, projects into the future, deals with the nature
of the filmmaking profession and also possesses an interdisciplinary
character. By understanding history, we can understand why things are the
way they are right now. By having an awareness of what had happened in
the past and the current situation, we are better placed to understand and
influence our future as a people. By looking at what happened in the past,
we can understand what we should avoid and what we should aim to
improve. According to George Santayana in The Life of Reason, Volume
1(1905), “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat
it”. For Lord Bolingbroke, in his chapter titled “The Dignity and Importance
of History”, “History is philosophy teaching by example”; Shakespeare
himself wrote that “there is a history in all men’s lives”. Daniel Webster
2 Introduction

also opined that history is not only philosophy, teaching by example, but
that its true purpose is also to illustrate the general progress of society in
knowledge and the arts, and the changes of manners and pursuits of men
(Webster, 1852).
Each contributor to this volume has achieved a degree of knowledge
and has the breadth of experience to provide us with a vision of what is
needed for the future. Some have focused on history, others on theory, and
some on criticism and how film production can be improved. In all, they
reflect the film culture of a continent. In ‘Ghanaian Cinema: A Historical
Appraisal’, Kwaw Ansah foregrounds the story of the African film by
detailing the history of Ghanaian cinema. He examines the career of the
Gold Coast Film Unit and its ‘civilizing’ mission, the importance of the
first film school in Ghana and of Kwame Nkrumah’s contributions
towards the development of African film.
In ‘African Film: Looking Backward and Looking Forward’, Afolabi
Adesanya underscores the much needed synergy between the celluloid
past and the present video-film while reaching forward to the digital
future. He emphasizes the fact that stories and images are among the
principal means by which human society has always transmitted its values
and beliefs. John R. Botha, in ‘South African Film: Looking Back and
Looking Forward’, contemplates the nature and history of South Africa’s
filmic evolution. Issues discussed in Botha’s chapter include customs,
beliefs and ideologies presented as central to filmmaking, and issues of
financing. He illustrates his points by providing an exegesis of three South
African films and concludes with a prognosis of South Africa’s filmic
future.

The fulcrum of Hyginus Ekwuazi’s chapter is based on the film

audience, as revealed in his title: ‘Nollywood: The Audience as
Merchandise’. He argues that entertainment in the Nollywood film is
seriously compromised. He reiterates that the challenge for Nigerian
filmmakers is to work out a creatively empirical way to package their
audience for sale to a sponsor as this will prevent the motion picture
industry from relying solely on selling entertainment to the audience.
Tendai Chari, in ‘Recapturing a Nation’s Fading Memory through Video:
An Analysis of ‘Chimurenga’ Videos’, discusses the rebirth of the video
film industry and the use of video in documenting the history of the
liberation war in Zimbabwe. He stresses that Chimurenga videos
accentuate memory, patriotism, courage and selflessness as priceless
virtues needed to overcome colonialism and neo-colonialism.
 African Film: Looking Back and Looking Forward 3

Wanjiru Kinyanjui embarks on ‘A Historical Voyage through Kenyan

Film’ in her chapter of the same title. She states that Kenya has numerous
media institutions training young talents to produce films, but that what is
needed is a film school if Kenya is to produce quality movies. In Nyasha
Mboti’s ‘Unpacking the Hotel: A Study of the Cinematic Politics of Hotel
Rwanda’, we see an interrogation of methods used in film analysis. The
author proposes subjecting the image to new analytical perspectives,
discussing how ideology insinuates itself in the image. Aziz Chahir’s
chapter, based on the filmic image of Moroccan women, is titled: ‘Women
in Moroccan Cinema: Between Tradition and Modernity’.
Vitus Nanbigne’s ‘Counter-Hegemony in Ghanaian Video-Film Practice’
questions the reasons behind the practice of mostly amateur video-film
producers, who seem to have rejected the meta-narratives of anti-
colonialism. He identifies causative factors such as the lack of formal
training in filmmaking and the failure to develop film scripts and evolve
complex narratives.
Françoise Ugochukwu’s ‘Nigerian Video-Films on History: Love in
Vendetta and the 1987 Kano riots’ examines the connection between film
and history in the film Love in Vendetta, inspired by the infamous Kano
riots of that year. Issues discussed include the place of the film at the
intersection between reality and fiction, an unusual treatment of history
and the film’s unifying agenda. Through her chapter, ‘Women and Politics
in Nollywood: A Challenge to Film Producers in the 21st Century’, Agatha
Ukata questions the gendered notions observed in Nollywood films, which
usually portray women at the margins of political representation and
governance.
Busuyi Mekussi focuses on history in his chapter, ‘A Nation’s Present
in the Past: Lightening the Blurred Future through Filming’. He posits that
the development of films in South Africa has gone beyond the reflection
on the past and present to the presaging of the future in order for the
country to begin tackling challenges around security, job provision and
psycho-social stabilization. ‘Migrating Nollywood: Melting Borders in
Tunde Kelani’s Abeni’ is the title of Jendele Hungbo’s chapter. He
explores ways in which Tunde Kelani’s film handles the telling effects of
colonialism and its creation of artificial borders between communities.
Julius-Adeoye Rantimi Jays examines ‘Issues of Picture Right
Ownership in Nigerian Video-Film’. He discusses the various types of
rights in the motion picture industry and concludes that contract
agreements between producer, director and marketer must be specific.
‘Racism in the Jungle Adventure Film’, by Charles Uji and Oluwaseun
Adesina, provides a race-based survey of African films. The authors state
4 Introduction

that in spite of modernization and legislations, racism still subsists in some

films made in the late twentieth century and even in the twenty-first
century. The chapter focuses on Jamie Uys’s The Gods Must be Crazy. In
‘Fashion and Films: The Nigerian Example’, Toyin Ogundeji states that
film is an art which reflects and affects society. She supports this assertion
through a discussion of Nigerian fashion and its adoption in screen
costumes as well as the adaptation of film costumes for the domestic
fashion scene.
Kwaghkondo Agber writes on ‘Thematic Developments in Nigerian
Video-films’. He emphasizes the need for a re-orientation of the home
video film themes from sex, witchcraft and magic to themes that portray
and reflect Nigerian cultures in more positive directions. Dominica Dipio
provides a ‘Historical Overview of Ugandan Film Industry’. She identifies
factors that have aided the growth of the industry such as the film climate
in the region and the enthusiasm this has generated among Ugandans.
In summary, this book has achieved one of the goals for setting up the
annual Ife International film Festival – “To publish papers presented by
filmmakers, theorists, critics, etc. at plenary sessions, special workshops,
seminars and panel discussions, thereby contributing to the growing
literature on the African film”. This book will provide the opportunity for
filmmakers, academics and students to learn about the history, theories,
problems and various approaches to production, marketing and a host of
other subjects that impinge upon the African film.
My thanks and special gratitude go to my academic colleagues, friends
and industry professionals for their support in completing this book
project. I must mention and acknowledge, in a very special way, the
painstaking care taken by my colleague and contributor to this volume,
Professor Françoise Ugochukwu, in going through the drafts, proofreading
and offering incisive suggestions on the manuscript.
I am also indebted to the anonymous peer reviewers who helped with
the review of the differnt chapters. Finally, my thanks go the the editors at
Cambridge Scholars Publishing for their patience and assistance. The
organizers of the Ife International Film Festival hereby acknowledge the
support of the Prince Claus Fund for Culture, The Netherlands, for
providing the grant to facilitate the organization of the 2009 edition of the
festival.
 CHAPTER I

GHANAIAN CINEMA:
A HISTORICAL APPRAISAL*

KWAW ANSAH
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, TV AFRICA, ACCRA, GHANA

The history of Ghanaian cinema is filled with many pleasant memories.

Yet it equally faced many challenges, some of which are yet to be
overcome. Ghana officially became a British colony in 1844, when a
group of chiefs of the then Gold Coast were made to sign a bond with the
British Crown. From then on to the declaration of independence on March
6, 1957, the colonial masters had a vested interest in ensuring that the
Africans of the Gold Coast saw their role as subjects of the British Crown
as crucial. To achieve this, one of the tools they successfully employed
was cinema. The Gold Coast Film Unit was created to produce films that
conscientized the people of the Gold Coast on issues such as the payment
of taxes and levies, while reminding them that they were subjects of the
British Crown.
In 1937, a British Major, L.A. Notcutt, was commissioned by the
Colonial Government to produce series of films to “civilize Africa”. This
marked the beginning of the launching of Colonial Film Units in various
parts of Africa, including the Gold Coast. The immediate objective,
according to the film historian Jean Rouch, was to use films to get
Africans to participate in World War Two. Films produced projected how
honourable and heroic it was to serve in the colonial fighting force.
Cinema screens were awash with films showing brave and victorious
warriors being honoured on their return from fighting the enemy on behalf
of the British Crown. This campaign was largely successful; it however
had an unexpected aftermath. Pre-war promises were not honoured and
this sparked an uprising of ex-service men, which in turn led to the speedy
march to Ghana’s independence.
In 1949, following a report which John Grierson wrote for UNESCO,
the Colonial Film Unit initiated a film school in Accra, Gold Coast, called
6 Chapter I

the West Africa Film Training School. Grierson noted that films made by
L.A. Notcutt, the Bantu Film Experiment and the Colonial Film Unit did
not attract African audiences enough because Africans could not identify
with them. Grierson believed that the problem of cinema in the Colonies
would be resolved, “not by projecting films from the West, but by colonial
peoples making films inside the colonies for themselves” (quoted in Van
Beaver, p. 16-17). The film school in Accra had an initial intake of six
students: three from the Gold Coast, namely Okanta, Fenuku and Aryeetey,
and three from Nigeria, namely Fajemisin, Otigba and Alhaji Auna.
The British Crown had succeeded immensely in getting many young
brave men to enlist into the West African Frontier Force, by enticing them
through the power of cinema, making them believe that they would be
honoured and rewarded as heroes on their return. After having helped to
defeat the Germans, the African soldiers found to their utter
disappointment, on their return, that a British corporal would earn far more
than an African Lieutenant. As if reneging on the pre-war promises was
not enough, the ex-servicemen, who had fought heroically on the side of
the allied forces in Burma against the powerful Japanese and in the desert
against Rommel’s army, were disappointed to find that only the Europeans
were shown in all the post-war documentary films. All the Africans’
heroic deeds, especially those of the West African Frontier Force, were
conveniently left out. It was probably a stark reminder to the African
soldiers that the war was not their war, and that the only reason they were
there was to perform their subservient duty as colonial subjects.
The above incidents, as well as general poor conditions of living, led to
the famous march of the 28th of February 1948. The march was ruthlessly
put down by a British Police Officer, Major Imray, when he ordered fire
on the unarmed ex-servicemen, who were merely seeking to present a
petition for better living conditions to the Governor at the Christiansburg
Castle in Accra. Sergeant Adjetey, Corporal Atipoe and Private Odartey
fell in the process (for more on this, see Briggs and Bartlett p.12). These
terrible events coincided with the end of the boycott of European goods,
which had been successfully organized by Nii Kwabena Bonne III, a
powerful chief of Osu Alata, as protest against exorbitant prices and illicit
activities of the Syrian and Lebanese merchants who controlled the retail
market.
Kwame Nkrumah and other members of the United Gold Coast
Convention (UGCC), obviously frustrated by the heavy-handed manner in
which the demonstrators had been treated by the colonial administration,
sent a protest telegram to the colonial office in London. Six of the political
agitators including Nkrumah were promptly arrested and put behind bars,
 Ghanaian Cinema: A Historical Appraisal 7

and later became known as the “Big Six” of Ghana’s politics. This event
became a major catalyst for the attainment of Ghana’s independence.
During the same period, ex-servicemen from the French colonial
territories who had been camped in Senegal faced similar difficulties;
when they complained, they were surrounded by French soldiers with
tanks and armoured cars and several of them were killed. When Ousmane
Sembene made a film based on this event, called Camp de Thiaroye, the
film was promptly banned in France, and the usual support the French
Government gave to filmmakers in Francophone West Africa was denied
him. One may ask whether Sembene crossed the line by using cinema,
which in the colonial days was the preserve of the colonial master, to
reveal a well-guarded secret.
The British had obviously not anticipated that the submissive and
obedient Gold Coast Contingent would ever dare demand that promises,
made to them through the power of cinema as a reward for the sacrificing
of their lives to achieve victory, be fulfilled. Indeed, before Ghana got its
independence, the Gold Coast Film Unit had already produced a number
of famous short feature films, such as Progress in Kojokrom, Mr. Mensah
Builds a House, The Boy Kumasenu and Theresa. This last film was
produced to encourage young women to opt for the nursing profession – a
campaign which equally proved very successful.
Most of the films were used to educate Africans on the need to pay
taxes and respond proactively to colonial dictates, even though 60% to
80% of the tax revenue and other natural resources were sent to Britain.
The colonial authorities were mindful of the fact that resistance to taxation
had already led to the Aba Women’s riots of 1928-1930 in South Eastern
Nigeria. In that episode, Igbo women of Aba, who were already unhappy
about their husbands and sons’ over-taxation, felt that the head-count of
citizens which was taking place was a prelude to the imposition of taxes
on women for the first time. Their successful protest forced some local
“warrant chiefs” to surrender their caps (the symbol of their power) and
take to their heels, while the enumeration exercise was abandoned. To
avoid a repeat of such an event in the Gold Coast, a well-dramatized film,
featuring local artistes, became a useful tool to gradually persuade and
educate the people on the usefulness and necessity of taxation.
The Gold Coast Film Unit also produced weekly newsreels of British
news as well as news of the various colonial territories. These were shown
in the cinema houses, largely with the aim of brainwashing the colonial
subjects and reminding them that the Monarch’s authority was supreme.
After the war, the themes of the films largely changed to project British
etiquette and values, and to denigrate African religions in well-crafted
8 Chapter I

stories that created hell for non-adherents to the religion of the colonial
masters and heaven for the converts to Christianity. In all these stories,
Satan was always visually portrayed as a black person while Christ and the
angels were always portrayed as white. The effect of this psychological
orientation still lives on today among Christians who believe that God is
white, and this, in effect, negatively affects our self-esteem. In all these,
the role of cinema has been pivotal.
Apart from the above, the people of the Gold Coast also had exposure
to films made in Hollywood, Britain and other places in the Western
world. Subconsciously, many of such films were to gradually mould our
psychological orientation and lead us to see ourselves as servants of the
values of our European Masters. In such films, the best roles Africans and
people of African descent ever played were those of senseless timid
domestic servants, buffoons or cotton pickers. Many generations of African
youth found it fashionable to adopt names of characters in Hollywood
movies, and some still live with such guy names/nicknames which have no
relevance to them. This is how names like Roy Rogers, Humphrey Bogart,
Lash Larou, Kisco Kid, Doris Day and Ava Gardener found their way into
Ghanaian vocabulary.

Film in Post-Independence Ghana

Fortunately for Ghana, she became the first African nation south of the
Sahara to gain independence. With her new status as an independent
nation, came a youthful and dynamic president, with a lot of ideas and a
deeper understanding of emancipation. Having studied in America and
Britain, Kwame Nkrumah understood that the audiovisual media had been
one of the effective tools employed by the Western world to do
psychological damage to the image of Africa and the black race. He was
therefore determined to reverse this state of affairs, starting with his
speech on the eve of Ghana’s independence, in which he declared in part:
“we are going to create our own African personality and identity”. Implied
in that statement was a major push to transform Ghana’s film unit into a
modern state-of-the-art industrial complex, and that was exactly what
Nkrumah did.
Within a few months of taking office, he transformed the then Gold
Coast Film Unit into a full-fledged Ghana Film Industry Corporation
(GFIC). Records show that the government had established a standing
order with major film equipment manufacturing companies, to supply the
GFIC with every new state-of-the art equipment on the market. He also
sent aspiring filmmakers out to Canada, Poland, USA, the UK and France
 Ghanaian Cinema: A Historical Appraisal 9

to strengthen their skills in the various disciplines, in order to make Ghana

self-sufficient in film production. Among the beneficiaries of the training
programme was one of Africa’s foremost cinematographers, Dr. Chris
Tsui Hesse, who was Director of Photography for the award-winning films
Love Brewed in the African Pot and Heritage Africa. GFIC was to
concentrate on the industrial production of relevant feature films and
documentaries, and provide content for the cinema houses and television
programming in Africa to minimize the negative impact of Hollywood and
Western values on the continent.
The first President of Ghana believed that, in order to build the African
personality and identity which he had spoken about in his declaration of
independence, film would have a major role to play, just as Hollywood
had effectively moulded our minds to become Americans even if we had
never been there. Nkrumah thus made sure that every major event on the
African continent (the achievement of independence, Organization of
African Unity (OAU) activities and other important functions) was
captured on film by the GFIC. This made GFIC the biggest source of
African archival film material in Africa south of the Sahara, apart from
South Africa. Regrettably, February 1966 came and President Kwame
Nkrumah was overthrown. Since then, GFIC had never had such an
advocate in the corridors of power.

The Changing Fortunes of Ghana’s Film Industry

In the 1980s, a group of Ghanaian filmmakers appealed to the government
with a proposal to set up a fund which would serve as seed money to
encourage people in the film industry. Successive governments, reminded
of the proposal, have expressed interest in it, but no further steps have
been taken to craft any policy direction to achieve this vision.
Unfortunately, in the 1990s, the whole GFIC was sold to Malaysians, who
naturally would not be too concerned about Ghana’s archives; most of our
African film heritage was thus left outside at the mercy of the weather, and
a whole history of films, including their negatives, was destroyed under
the ‘watchful’ eyes of the government.
Incidental to every coup in Ghana was the sub-culture of curfews
which accompanied every coup since 1966. This helped to speed up the
near collapse of the film industry in the country, as night life became
increasingly difficult and cinema was gradually weakened. In the midst of
these challenges, private Ghanaian film production companies emerged.
‘Film Africa’ produced its first feature-length film, Love Brewed in the
African Pot, which became an instant box office record breaker. Even
10 Chapter I

though the script of the film had been ready before 1980, lack of both
resources and policy direction to support the film industry, and
unwillingness on the part of the banks to venture into the financing of film
in the private sector - which was new in Ghana and considered to be a high
risk business - held it up for eight years. Later, other films were produced,
such as Heritage Africa, Genesis Chapter X, Sankofa, and, much later,
Nkrabea My Destiny, Step Dad, Ghost Tears and His Majesty’s Sergeant.
A Hollywood film produced in Ghana called Contact and others were shot
with the infrastructural support of the GFIC.
During this period, stakeholders in the film industry were excited about
the prospect of a new beginning for the Ghanaian Film Industry. Things
were beginning to take shape. The cinema houses were regaining
patronage, and a new crop of young talented actors and actresses began to
emerge on the scene. At the same time, with the advent of video
technology with its instant nature and low budget, video film pirates got a
step ahead of the local filmmakers, making their work quite challenging. It
turned out that pirates were making more profit than video film producers
who soon began to incur losses. When the film industry was vibrant,
Ghanaian producers offered technical assistance to Nigerian Film makers
like Ola Balogun with his Cry Freedom, Eddy Ugbomah and others. But
now, arrears of artist fees began to mount and disillusionment set in for
young artists and filmmakers who had hoped to earn a reasonable living
out of the film industry.
It is worth mentioning that, in 1978, the Ghana National Film and
Television Institute (NAFTI) was established in Accra, Ghana. It is
gratifying also to note that NAFTI, this time, was not set up with the main
objective to entice our youth to enlist in the colonial West African Frontier
Force but to train Africans to know who they are, where they are coming
from and where they are going. It has so far trained filmmakers, not only
from Ghana but also from Nigeria, Ethiopia, Botswana, South Africa,
Gambia, Sierra Leone, Lesotho and other countries.
In the late 1990s, our brothers from Nigeria, armed with video
technology, penetrated the Ghanaian market and overran it. While it took
the average Ghanaian production company a minimum of six months to
one year to produce capital intensive celluloid films, it took our Nigerian
counterparts a maximum of six weeks to complete a whole video film,
post-production included. This made Ghanaian movies instantly
uncompetitive financially because of the sheer cost of production. Many of
the Ghanaian filmmakers soon went out of business, while others became
agents of Nigerian production companies. Our good artists and technicians
began to seek roles in Nigerian-made films, which provided some of them
 Ghanaian Cinema: A Historical Appraisal 11

with instant success in Ghana. As a result, most of our cinema houses went
idle and were taken over by charismatic Churches.
While one is happy that the Nigerian film industry has significantly
reduced the influence of Hollywood culture on African TV screens, one is
also quite concerned with the technical quality of a number of productions,
and with storylines which seem to confirm Western stereotypes of Africa.
While some Nigerian films have told good and relevant stories, I am
equally concerned about the portrayal of almost every successful African
entrepreneur as either a corrupt politician or an occultist. Yet there are
countless successful hardworking Nigerians making it through honest
means. Frankly, that stereotypical portrayal of African success is
worrisome. I grew up in the Western part of Ghana, where the people
engaged in petty trading which grew into big businesses were often
Nigerians. There was a popular saying at the time, that any Ghanaian
village which did not have a Lagosian petty trader called Papa or Mame
Lasisi was not commercially awake. We called the Lagosians Mame and
Papa Alata. I later learnt from a Nigerian High Commissioner that ‘Alata’
in Yoruba means ‘pepper’. This was a pleasant reminder that when Mame
or Papa Alata came, they started their business with pepper on a small
table, and then added charcoal and later sardine until it grew into a kiosk
and eventually into a supermarket. It is therefore no accident that the
biggest markets in Ghana are now called Makola Number one and Makola
Number two, named after a popular market in Yorubaland (specifically
Ibadan) in the Western part of Nigeria.
In the midst of all these, all hope is not lost for the movie industry in
Ghana. In the last two to three years, a number of new producers have
come up with a revived determination to give our Nigerian brothers a good
run for their money. It is worth mentioning that a number of them have
had very good productions which have been accepted beyond the shores of
Ghana. The ones which I can immediately mention are Run Baby Run,
Scorned, Life and Living it, Things We do for Love, Home Sweet Home
and many other feature-length productions. We still have a long way to go
in order to be able to produce six hundred movies per annum as obtains
with our competitors in Nigeria. But it is heart-warming to know that these
are largely young people who are making this immense effort, which
means that we can expect far more inspiring African stories from Ghana
and Nigeria.
The Ghanaian Film Industry began in pre-independence days, when the
colonial authorities saw film as an important tool for the colonial
orientation process. It was transformed in the days of Kwame Nkrumah
into a tool for creating what the visionary called the “African personality
12 Chapter I

and identity” with the establishment of the GFIC. However, the industry
took a downward turn due to lack of attention from successive
governments after Nkrumah and is now largely in the hands of private
producers who do not always appreciate the power of the tool they work
with. That notwithstanding, the end of the once vibrant Ghana film
Industry is far from sight. ‘Film Africa’, the producers of Love Brewed in
the African Pot and Heritage Africa and promoters of Television Africa
have put together a well-equipped five-studio complex called ‘Film Africa
Studios’, to support the re-emergence of the Ghanaian Film Industry. Even
though we might not be able to produce the same number of films as our
Nigerian counterparts produce per annum, we are determined to ensure
that the stories we bring out are very strong and inspirational. The doors of
Ghana’s ‘Film Africa Studios’ are now open to our Nigerian brothers for
us all to tell stories together.
In conclusion, filmmakers must be cognizant of the very powerful tool
at their disposal. The negative image associated with Africa today is
largely a creation of the Western audiovisual industry. Fortunately now,
technology has put the tool at the disposal of very capable and thoughtful
African filmmakers. What we do with this tool is entirely within our
control. We could choose to use it to reverse Western stereotypes, which
have created an inferiority complex for our continent and its people, but
we could also use it to reinforce those negative views. The caution is that,
if, for purely commercial reasons, we do not tone down excessive
projection of occultism and Juju, the obsession with nudity and the blatant
copy of decadent Western values, we may be sowing the seeds of
perpetual psychological damage to future generations, something which
may not be easy to reverse.

Bibliography
Briggs, Philip & Bartlett, Mary-Anne, 2006, Malawi. Malawi: Bradt
Travel Guides.
Van Bever, L., 1952, Le Cinéma pour Africain, Brussels: G. Van
Campenhout.
 CHAPTER II

NIGERIAN FILM:
LOOKING BACKWARD AND LOOKING FORWARD

AFOLABI ADESANYA
MANAGING DIRECTOR, NIGERIAN FILM CORPORATION

Preamble
This chapter is an attempt to focus attention on the need to reappraise
the reasons for the disconnect, if any, between the African cinema heritage
of Ousmane Sembene, the godfather of the African film industry, Hubert
Ogunde, the doyen of the industry, Adeyemi Afolayan, (of blessed
memory) and forerunners from Nigeria (Francis Oladele, Ola Balogun,
Eddie Ugbomah, Moses Olaiya Adejumo - Baba Sala, Newton Aduaka),
Senegal (Moussa Sene Absa), Congo (Balufu Bakupa-Kayinda),
Cameroun (Jean Marie Teno), Burkina Faso (Fanta Regina Nacro), South
Africa (Ramadan Suleiman), Kenya (Judy Kibinge), Ghana (Veronica
Quarshie), Mali (Abderrahmane Sissako) on the one hand, and the current
wave of video filmmaking, championed by Nigerians, on the other.
According to Olivier Barlet, this last one, which leaves much to be
desired, has nevertheless come to be accepted as a model worthy of
emulation.
On another level, the focus also goes to underscore the much-needed
synergy between the celluloid past, the video present and the digital future,
though not in any chronological sequence. The structure of this chapter is
therefore intended to stimulate both critical analysis and discussion. I
would rather move forward by looking back, through an interactive
historical journey covering five obvious sub-themes:

- The colonial phase,

- The postcolonial or post-independence phase,
- The modern phase,
14 Chapter II

- The post-modern phase / the future of film on the continent,

- The policy environment of African film.

But first, what do we understand by African cinema? African cinema

started literally and symbolically with Ousmane Sembene. The term is
generically employed to describe films produced in sub-Saharan Africa
since the independences in the 1960s. It is therefore a conglomeration of
national film industries, including film directors living in the Diaspora.
Directors invariably represent the soul of the film; it is in that vein that the
following quotation becomes apt in showcasing African film. Writing on
African film directors, Okoh Aihie says they are

A metaphor of strength, a symbol of hope that can’t be dimmed so easily, a

pulsating stream of life that is constantly rejuvenated … (with) a
desperation to prove something, that African people have something that
goes beyond poverty and misery, they always want to speak about the
beauty of the continent, exhibited in manifold cultured and splendid natural
settings… in spite of the wars and famine … (2004: vi)

Film directors are undoubtedly the owners of the film because the film
cannot be complete without them. They call the shots. And in the same
vein, film directors are storytellers! It is their responsibility to create a
story that others will see as they see it. They must have a deep
understanding of the essence of the story, which they have been given the
mandate to make into a movie, taking into account the visuality of films.
The hallmark of African cinema then is this: stories steeped in African
mythology, folklore and ancient beliefs, full of superstition, exotericism,
empiricism and sourced from our cultural background. We love stories of
conquest and mysticism, uniquely told, aided by aesthetics of beautiful
landscapes and scenery, echoing the peculiarity of the African experience,
cultural heritage, philosophy and mode of governance, and displaying a
different orientation altogether.

African Film: The Colonial/Post-Independence

Celluloid Past
The film medium, which is the most important invention of the 20th
century, became a force and a tool to reckon with, used by all and sundry,
especially for political gains. As we commence this historical voyage, it is
pertinent to note that film was brought to Africa within the colonial
context, at the height of the colonial era. Arriving at an auspicious time, it
helped in no small measure to perpetuate colonial ambitions, reducing
 Nigerian Film: Looking Backward and Looking Forward 15

colonial subjects to its scope of reference in politics, culture, economics

and social systems. In most colonial societies, especially those far-
removed from a national cinema culture, the film image resided outside
the province of social reality because colonial cinema impressed “unreal
images”. This is one of the deepest lingering legacies of the colonial
cinema heritage (Okome (1995: 26-27).
Apart from this, the missionaries also craved to create a new religious
order for the “natives” through film screenings. Since 1903 when the first
film was exhibited in Nigeria and on the continent at large, the response
from indigenous populations had understandably been euphoric, as the
people loved the magic of the moving image (Okome, 28). Mgbejume
(1989) contends that

The early films shown [to] the African audiences before locally made films
were available were those made in Europe, England and United States.
These films were sent by the colonial government “as a benevolent gesture
of tutelage to the colonial people”.

However, colonial cinema affected all modes of indigenous cultural

production negatively and delayed advancement in film production,
distribution and film studies. The film medium nonetheless provided a
means through which colonialism articulated the need for the actual
dislocation of the inherited system and cultural values of Africa. The
context of colonial films was anti-native, glorifying European middle class
etiquettes, and the screening procedures were quite often disorientating
and patronizing.
The post-independence era nonetheless witnessed an outburst of
creative energies as the aforementioned pioneers and pathfinders strived,
against all odds, to establish an indigenous cinema across the continent,
away from the colonial legacy which mainly thrived on the newsreel and
documentary genres. Both the “Med Hondo” School and the “Ousmane
Sembene” School of African film hold that, to effectively decolonize the
Africa film and work out an aesthetic recognizably African (its Hollywood
appendages notwithstanding), African filmmaking should be a reaction
against Western filmmaking, against the Western stereotype of the black
man and his world – a functionalist view of culture which served as the
compass for the pioneers to bequeath an enduring legacy to generations
yet unborn.
Culture is therefore at the heart of the African film. And at the heart of
culture is language, be it English, French or Portuguese, which I described
elsewhere as “that privileged and fragile vehicle of communication and
cultural identity.” Our style and identity separate our films from those
16 Chapter II

produced on other continents. Of course, the colonial question contributed

a lot to this, coupled with the experience we had in Africa. In spite of this
dichotomy, however, creativity was evident in the films produced by
pioneers and pathfinders. It is our style and our identity that separate our
films from every other type.
In summary, the basic aim of the celluloid past was cultural re-
evaluation and the restitution of African culture from colonial domination
and Western propaganda. African filmmakers have produced and continue
to produce some of the world’s finest films in response to the aspirations
of their people and perhaps in response to what Sembene Ousmane
proposed as the perception or role of the African cinema

… Becoming the important tool for the fertilization of a new African

culture. …the cinema brings together the essences of African traditional
culture which are essentially oral. Thus, it has the possibility of being an
excellent ferment in the vast political culture which the African masses
possess” (Edison, 1979: 93).

Examples of these films abound in the few books and many other
scholarly works published on the industry by both foreign and
indigenous authors.

The Modern Video Present

The “cinematic heritage” inherited from the two phases paraphrased
above proved unsustainable in the face of the economics of film
production and marketing. From the 1990s, African countries, and
especially Nigeria, began to experience dwindling fortunes which
eventually led to the demise of the feature film. Although a number of
Francophone filmmakers, who looked up to France for film funding,
continued to churn out films on celluloid, the story was different in
Anglophone countries shooting their own films using their own resources.
From reversal stock to the video, the emergence of movies on the
continent was only a matter of time, even though, coming more than two
decades after the arrival of video in America, it aligned itself to the
intention of the manufacturers – to quickly redistribute the image to a
larger population.
Some of the greatest beneficiaries of this paradigm shift are poorer
African countries, and we all must admit that the oil bust of the late
seventies and early eighties, the subsequent austerity measures and the
structural adjustment programs (SAP) of the nineties dealt a devastating
blow to the burgeoning film industry. The gradual rise of poverty limited
 Nigerian Film: Looking Backward and Looking Forward 17

the people’s ability to pay for outdoor entertainment, while the rising
profile of insecurity kept people at home. Robbed of the prospect of
financial assistance, optimistic Nigerian filmmakers dumped the expensive
celluloid medium in favour of a cheaper alternative - video - with
disastrous consequences (Ademiju-Bepo and Okpodu, 2006: 23).
African films certainly cut across the entire film genre, with stories
including witchcraft, romance, some action, horror, comedy, opera, and
drama - a carry-over from the postcolonial heritage. Nigeria, known for
the ingenuity of her film practitioners, led the way in re-inventing the
video format across the continent.

Digitization: The Post-Modern Future of Video

Jonathan Haynes noted that History had imposed the clash of the
traditional and the modern as an inevitable theme of African cinema as
well as literature. The novel and the film as urban modern art forms
therefore tend to look back to the village oral literature or orature in a bid
to move forward. Today, we live in a global village, where almost all
primordial barriers to arts, commerce, communication and human relations
have collapsed. Africa seems to be responsive to this call, going by the
theme of the National Broadcasting Commission’s 7th Biennial Conference
of African Broadcasters, Africast 2008, held in Abuja in October 2008:
‘Digitization and the Challenges of Broadcasting’, which focused attention
on the future of filmmaking and broadcasting on the continent.
In looking forward, African film should begin to take the issue of
digitization seriously. Since we do not yet manufacture any of the
equipment we use, we must brace ourselves up for the challenges ahead.
As the Honourable Minister of Information and Communications, Prof.
Dora Akunyili, said, this will be done “by encouraging world class
production and developing ideas to enhance (Nollywood) African films
without taking away the cultural appeal that has endeared the industry to
the world”.

The Policy Environment of the African Film

Let me briefly share a few thoughts on the policy environment of the
African film, using Nigeria and one or two other countries as paradigm.
Through the colonial, postcolonial and modern phases, key policy goals
have included nationalization, increased language filmmaking, investment,
empowerment, technological innovation and the competitiveness of the
sector. From the Colonial film Units (CFUs) which dotted the continent,
18 Chapter II

through the Film Divisions of the independent nations, to the present day
Ministries of Information or Culture, Broadcasting or Communications,
African film has passed through a series of policy evolutions aimed at
strengthening the industry towards achieving the goals and aspirations of
its founding fathers.
Successive governments in Africa have ensured that a conducive
atmosphere is provided and guaranteed for the practice, production,
distribution and marketing of films to meet global demand for Africa’s
stories. From investment, tax incentives and infrastructural development to
research, training, capacity building and professionalism, appropriate
legislations are continually put in place to maximize the potentials of the
film medium to the advantage of Africa.
In the future which begins today, African filmmakers should strive for
global best quality and standard – from scripting and directing, through
shooting to editing and sound – which will make our films admissible into
international film festivals across the continents, and ultimately bring
annual harvests of laurels. This is without prejudice to the indigenous
viewership, which we must sustain through an edifying content that could
be the pride of every African at home and in the diaspora. The government
of the day would also support these efforts with the patriotic intention of
placing our continent on the world map.

Concluding Remarks
Every average African has either gone through the experience of going
to the cinema and watching films or watching videos at home. The revival
of the cinema theatre culture among Africans is now gaining momentum.
This is influenced by the mass appeal enjoyed by our home videos and the
desire to go back to the celluloid production. However, the challenge of
investment in the sector still stares practitioners in the face daily. But we
must hope for a change.

The African film industry cannot be relevant until it defines its image
without ambiguity. Can donor-funded films still provide a platform for the
stories our filmmakers really want to tell? Do the issue-led films of today
hark back to the propaganda of the 1960s and 1970s or is there a real need
and desire to make this type of film? Filmmakers are warriors and history
makers. It is in discovering your own problems, telling your own stories -
those that are under your nose, that you become a better person. Stories
and images are among the means by which human society has always
transmitted its values and beliefs, from generation to generation, with
 Nigerian Film: Looking Backward and Looking Forward 19

films driven by stories. It we fail to use them responsibly, creatively and

simply, we are likely to cause irreversible damage to the health and vitality
of our African societies.
 CHAPTER III

SOUTH AFRICAN FILM:

LOOKING BACK AND LOOKING FORWARD

JOHN R. BOTHA
NORTH WEST UNIVERSITY, REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

Introduction
When contemplating the nature and history of a country’s film
evolution, the task is made a great deal easier when such developments are
characterized primarily by stylistic idiosyncrasies rather than linguistic and
racial differences. It is, for example, a matter of simple academic analysis
to peruse the early development of film in France, and to describe it in
terms of technical achievements and the eventual divergence towards, on
the one hand, films of a more narrative and sometimes historical approach,
such as the films by Louis Gance, Jean Renoir and Marcel Carné, where
the epic and reflective storytelling nature of French film is clearly visible
(Peacock: 2001: 555). On the other hand, France’s film history could just
as easily be described in relation to the experimental approaches used by
Georges Méliès and later René Clair, Fernand Léger, Louis Buñuel and
Jean Cocteau (Bordwell, 1997: 18), leading to the French New Wave
(Bawden, 1976: 265-266). Germany is immediately identified with
Expressionism, Italy with Neo-Realism and so forth (Bordwell &
Thompson, 2003: 103-109, 359-366).
In a country such as South Africa, it is on the one hand very easy, for
anyone looking at it from a primarily political point of view, to establish
the main stream of filmic developments, for there can be no doubt that the
Golden Era of South African film, between 1960 and 1980 (Botha in De
beer, 1998: 192-196) was directly linked to the demand of the apartheid
society for primarily Afrikaans language films. English films were
however seen as an acceptable alternative, since the largest number of
South African filmgoers, whether English or Afrikaans, grew up under the