SunDryed Affairs is a new online collective of ideas, primarily by writers of color. We publish accessible nonfiction prose* of all genres, sub-genres, and non-genres, including, but not limited to: essay, memoir, satire, list, reviews, personal narrative, instructional manual, reportage, and letter. Subject matter is also open to the imagination.
The name is a play on the words “sundry,” meaning various, and “sundried,” which calls up images of brown. We hope to make a space for writers of color to share an array of ideas, whether on politics or music, travel or family, from the very personal to the universal, in an environment that feels inclusive and familiar while still being distinctly fresh.
There are no guidelines for submitted work other than high-quality writing. Please direct all inquiries and submissions to Kyla Marshell, khellonmars@khellonmars.com, and Anthony Dean-Harris, anthonydeanharris@gmail.com. Accepted work will be edited for grammatical correctness only.
*SunDryed Affairs does NOT publish fiction, poetry, drama, scholarship, or children’s writing.
Roseanne Barr was a sitcom star, a creator and a product, the agitator and the abused, a domestic goddess and a feminist pioneer. That was twenty years ago. But as far as she’s concerned, not much has changed.
By Roseanne Barr
Published May 15, 2011
(Photo: Robert Maxwell. Hair by Campbell McAuley/Solo Artists. Makeup by Shannon Hughey.)
During the recent and overly publicized breakdown of Charlie Sheen, I was repeatedly contacted by the media and asked to comment, as it was assumed that I know a thing or two about starring on a sitcom, fighting with producers, nasty divorces, public meltdowns, and bombing through a live comedytour. I have, however, never smoked crack or taken too many drugs, unless you count alcohol as a drug (I don’t). But I do know what it’s like to be seized by bipolar thoughts that make one spout wise about Tiger Blood and brag about winning when one is actually losing.
It’s hard to tell whether one is winning or, in fact, losing once one starts to think of oneself as a commodity, or a product, or a character, or a voice for the downtrodden. It’s called losing perspective. Fame’s a bitch. It’s hard to handle and drives you nuts. Yes, it’s true that your sense of entitlement grows exponentially with every perk until it becomes too stupendous a weight to walk around under, but it’s a cutthroat business, show, and without the perks, plain ol’ fame and fortune just ain’t worth the trouble.
“Winning” in Hollywood means not just power, money, and complimentary smoked-salmon pizza, but also that everyone around you fails just as you are peaking. When you become No. 1, you might begin to believe, as Cher once said in an interview, that you are “one of God’s favorite children,” one of the few who made it through the gauntlet and survived. The idea that your ego is not ego at all but submission to the will of the Lord starts to dawn on you as you recognize that only by God’s grace did you make it through the raging attack of idea pirates and woman haters, to ascend to the top of Bigshit Showbiz Mountain.
All of that sounds very much like the diagnosis for bipolar disorder, which more and more stars are claiming to have these days. I have it, as well as several other mental illnesses, but then, I’ve always been a trendsetter, even though I’m seldom credited with those kinds of things. And I was not crazy before I created, wrote, and starred in television’s first feminist and working-class-family sitcom (also its last).
I so admire Dave Chappelle. You did right for yourself by walking away, Dave. I did not have the guts to do it, because I knew I would never get another chance to carry so large a message on behalf of the men and women I grew up with, and that mattered most to me.
After my 1985 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, I was wooed by producers in Hollywood, who told me they wanted to turn my act into a sitcom. When Marcy Carsey—who co-owned Carsey-Werner with her production partner, Tom Werner (producers of The Cosby Show)—asked me to sign, I was impressed. I considered The Cosby Show to be some of the greatest and most revolutionary TV ever.
Marcy presented herself as a sister in arms. I was a cutting-edge comic, and she said she got that I wanted to do a realistic show about a strong mother who was not a victim of Patriarchal Consumerist Bullshit—in other words, the persona I had carefully crafted over eight previous years in dive clubs and biker bars: a fierce working-class Domestic Goddess. It was 1987, and it seemed people were primed and ready to watch a sitcom that didn’t have anything like the rosy glow of middle-class confidence and comfort, and didn’t try to fake it. ABC seemed to agree. They picked up Roseanne in 1988.
It didn’t take long for me to get a taste of the staggering sexism and class bigotry that would make the first season of Roseanne god-awful. It was at the premiere party when I learned that my stories and ideas—and the ideas of my sister and my first husband, Bill—had been stolen. The pilot was screened, and I saw the opening credits for the first time, which included this: CREATED BY MATT WILLIAMS. I was devastated and felt so betrayed that I stood up and left the party. Not one person noticed.
I confronted Marcy under the bleachers on the sound stage when we were shooting the next episode. I asked her how I could continue working for a woman who had let a man take credit for my work—who wouldn’t even share credit with me—after talking to me about sisterhood and all that bullshit. She started crying and said, “I guess I’m going to have to tell Brandon [Stoddard, then president of ABC Entertainment] that I can’t deliver this show.” I said, “Cry all you want to, but you figure out a way to put my name on the show I created, or kiss my ass good-bye.”
Season one, 1988: From top, Sarah Gilbert (Darlene), Lecy Goranson (Becky), Laurie Metcalf (Jackie), Goodman, Barr, and Michael Fishman (D.J.).
(Photo: ABC/Neal Peters Collection)
I went to complain to Brandon, thinking he could set things straight, as having a robbed star might be counterproductive to his network. He told me, “You were over 21 when you signed that contract.” He looked at me as if I were an arrogant waitress run amok.
I went to my agent and asked him why he never told me that I would not be getting the “created by” credit. He halfheartedly admitted that he had “a lot going on at the time” and was “sorry.” I also learned that it was too late to lodge a complaint with the Writers Guild. I immediately left that agency and went to the William Morris Agency. I figured out that Carsey and Werner had bullshitted Matt Williams into believing that it was his show and I was his “star” as effectively as they had bullshitted me into thinking that it was my show and Matt Williams was my “scribe.” I contacted Bernie Brillstein and a young talent manager in his office, Brad Grey, and asked them to help me. They suggested that I walk away and start over, but I was too afraid I would never get another show.
It was pretty clear that no one really cared about the show except me, and that Matt and Marcy and ABC had nothing but contempt for me—someone who didn’t show deference, didn’t keep her mouth shut, didn’t do what she was told. Marcy acted as if I were anti-feminist by resisting her attempt to steal my whole life out from under me. I made the mistake of thinking Marcy was a powerful woman in her own right. I’ve come to learn that there are none in TV. There aren’t powerful men, for that matter, either—unless they work for an ad company or a market-study group. Those are the people who decide what gets on the air and what doesn’t.
Complaining about the “created by” credit made an enemy of Matt. He wasted no time bullying and undermining me, going so far as to ask my co-star, John Goodman, who played Roseanne Conner’s husband, Dan, if he would do the show without me. (Goodman said no.) That caused my first nervous breakdown.
“I so admire Dave Chappelle. I did not have the guts to walk away.”
To survive the truly hostile environment on set, I started to pray nonstop to my God, as working-class women often do, and to listen nonstop to Patti Smith’s “People Have the Power.” I read The Art of War and kept the idea “He that cares the most, wins” upmost in my mind. I knew I cared the most, since I had the most to lose. I made a chart of names and hung them on my dressing-room door; it listed every person who worked on the show, and I put a check next to those I intended to fire when Roseanne became No. 1, which I knew it would.
My breakdown deepened around the fourth episode, when I confronted the wardrobe master about the Sears, Roebuck outfits that made me look like a show pony rather than a working-class mom. I wanted vintage plaid shirts, T-shirts, and jeans, not purple stretch pants with green-and-blue smocks. She bought everything but what I requested, so I wore my own clothes to work, thinking she was just absent-minded. I was still clueless about the extent of the subterfuge.
Eventually she told me that she had been told by one of Matt’s producers—his chief mouthpiece—“not to listen to what Roseanne wants to wear.” This producer was a woman, a type I became acquainted with at the beginning of my stand-up career in Denver. I cared little for them: blondes in high heels who were so anxious to reach the professional level of the men they worshipped, fawned over, served, built up, and flattered that they would stab other women in the back. They are the ultimate weapon used by men against actual feminists who try to work in media, and they are never friends to other women, you can trust me on that.
I grabbed a pair of wardrobe scissors and ran up to the big house to confront the producer. (The “big house” was what I called the writers’ building. I rarely went there, since it was disgusting. Within minutes, one of the writers would crack a stinky-pussy joke that would make me want to murder them. Male writers have zero interest in being nice to women, including their own assistants, few of whom are ever promoted to the rank of “writer,” even though they do all the work while the guys sit on their asses taking the credit. Those are the women who deserve the utmost respect.) I walked into this woman’s office, held the scissors up to show her I meant business, and said, “Bitch, do you want me to cut you?” We stood there for a second or two, just so I could make sure she was receptive to my POV. I asked why she had told the wardrobe master to not listen to me, and she said, “Because we do not like the way you choose to portray this character.” I said, “This is no fucking character! This is my show, and I created it—not Matt, and not Carsey-Werner, and not ABC. You watch me. I will win this battle if I have to kill every last white bitch in high heels around here.”
Season nine, 1997: The last season, with the second Becky, Sarah Chalke.
(Photo: ABC/Neal Peters Collection)
The next battle came when Matt sent down a line for me that I found incredibly insulting—not just to myself but to John, who I was in love with, secretly. The line was a ridiculously sexist interpretation of what a feminist thinks—something to the effect of “You’re my equal in bed, but that’s it.” I could not say it convincingly enough for Matt, and his hand-picked director walked over and gave me a note in front of the entire crew: “Say it like you mean it … That is a direct note from Matt.” What followed went something like this: My lovely acting coach, Roxanne Rogers (a sister of Sam Shepard), piped up and said, “Never give an actor a note in front of the crew. Take her aside and give her the note privately—that is what good directors do.” She made sure to say this in front of the entire crew. Then she suggested that I request a line change. So I did. Matt, who was watching from his office, yelled over the loudspeaker, “Say the line as written!” I said, “No, I don’t like the line. I find it repulsive, and my character would not say it.” Matt said, “Yes, she would say it. She’s hot to trot and to get her husband in bed with her, and give it to her like she wants it.” I replied that this was not what she would say or do: “It’s a castrating line that only an idiot would think to write for a real live woman who loves her husband, you cocksucker.” ABC’s lawyers were called in. They stood around the bed while the cameras filmed me saying, very politely, over and over, “Line change, please.” After four hours of this, I called my then-lawyer, Barry Hirsch, and demanded to be let out of my contract. I couldn’t take it any longer—the abuse, humiliation, theft, and lack of respect for my work, my health, my life. He explained that he had let it go on for hours on purpose and that I had finally won. He had sent a letter to the network and Carsey-Werner that said, “Matt wasted money that he could have saved with a simple line change. He cost you four hours in production budget.” That turned the tide in my favor.
Barry told me Matt would be gone after the thirteenth episode. Which didn’t stop him from making my life hell until then. Some days, I’d just stand in the set’s kitchen weeping loudly. The crew would surround me and encourage me to continue. CJ, one of my favorite cameramen—an African-American married to a white woman—would say, “Come on, Rosie, I need this job. I have five kids, and two of them are white!”
I was constantly thinking about my own kids’ being able to go to college, and I wrote jokes like a machine—jokes that I insisted be included in the scripts (lots of times, the writers would tell me that the pages got lost). But thanks to Barry, my then-manager Arlyne Rothberg, Roxanne, my brave dyke sister Geraldine Barr, the cast of great actors, the crew—who became my drinking buddies—the wardrobe department, and the craft-services folks, I showed up and lived out the first thirteen episodes, after which Matt left. Without all of them, I never would have made it. (Most of the crew now work for Chuck Lorre, who I fired from my show; his sitcoms star some of my co-stars and tackle many of the subjects Roseanne did. Imitation is the sincerest form of show business.)
Matt stayed just long enough to ensure him a lifetime’s worth of residuals. Another head writer was brought on, and at first he actually tried to listen to what I wanted to do. But within a few shows, I realized he wasn’t much more of a team player than Matt. He brought his own writers with him, all male, all old. Most of them had probably never worked with a woman who did not serve them coffee. It must have been a shock to their system to find me in a position to disapprove their jokes.
When the show went to No. 1 in December 1988, ABC sent a chocolate “1” to congratulate me. Guess they figured that would keep the fat lady happy—or maybe they thought I hadn’t heard (along with the world) that male stars with No. 1 shows were given Bentleys and Porsches. So me and George Clooney [who played Roseanne Conner’s boss for the first season] took my chocolate prize outside, where I snapped a picture of him hitting it with a baseball bat. I sent that to ABC.
(Photo: Robert Maxwell. Hair by Campbell McAuley/Solo Artists. Makeup by Shannon Hughey.)
Not long after that, I cleaned house. Honestly, I enjoyed firing the people I’d checked on the back of my dressing-room door. The writers packed their bags and went to join Matt on Tim Allen’s new show, Home Improvement, so none of them suffered at all. Tim didn’t get credit either.
But at least everyone began to credit me. I was assumed to be a genius and eccentric instead of a crazy bitch, and for a while it felt pretty nice. I hired comics that I had worked with in clubs, rather than script writers. I promoted several of the female assistants—who had done all the work of assembling the scripts anyway—to full writers. (I did that for one or two members of my crew as well.) I gave Joss Whedon and Judd Apatow their first writing jobs, as well as many other untried writers who went on to great success.
Call me immodest—moi?—but I honestly think Roseanne is even more ahead of its time today, when Americans are, to use a technical term from classical economics, screwed. We had our fun; it was a sitcom. But it also wasn’t The Brady Bunch; the kids were wiseasses, and so were the parents. I and the mostly great writers in charge of crafting the show every week never forgot that we needed to make people laugh, but the struggle to survive, and to break taboos, was equally important. And that was my goal from the beginning.
The end of my addiction to fame happened at the exact moment Roseanne dropped out of the top ten, in the seventh of our nine seasons. It was mysteriously instantaneous! I clearly remember that blackest of days, when I had my office call the Palm restaurant for reservations on a Saturday night, at the last second as per usual. My assistant, Hilary, who is still working for me, said—while clutching the phone to her chest with a look of horror, a look I can recall now as though it were only yesterday: “The Palm said they are full!” Knowing what that really meant sent me over the edge. It was a gut shot with a sawed-off scattershot, buckshot-loaded pellet gun. I made Hil call the Palm back, disguise her voice, and say she was calling from the offices of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Instantly, Hil was given the big 10-4 by the Palm management team. I became enraged, and though she was uncomfortable doing it (Hil is a professional woman), I forced her to call back at 7:55 and cancel the 8:00 reservation, saying that Roseanne—who had joined Tom and Nicole’s party of seven—had persuaded them to join her at Denny’s on Sunset Boulevard.
The feeling of being used all those years just because I was in the top ten—not for my money or even my gluttony—was sobering indeed. I vowed that I would make a complete change top to bottom and rid myself of the desires that had laid me low. (I also stopped eating meat for a year, out of bitterness and mourning for the Palm’s bone-in rib-eye steaks.) As inevitably happens to all stars, I could not look myself in the mirror for one more second. My dependence on empty flattery, without which I feared I would evaporate, masked a deeper addiction to the bizarro world of fame. I had sold my time and company at deflated prices just for the thrill of reserving the best tables at the best restaurants at the very last minute with a phone call to the maître d’—or the owner himself, whose friendship I coddled just to ensure premium access to the aforementioned, unbelievably good smoked-salmon pizza.
I finally found the right lawyer to tell me what scares TV producers worse than anything—too late for me. What scares these guys—who think that the perks of success include humiliating and destroying the star they work for (read Lorre’s personal attacks on Charlie Sheen in his vanity cards at the end of Two and a Half Men)—isn’t getting caught stealing or being made to pay for that; it’s being charged with fostering a “hostile work environment.” If I could do it all over, I’d sue ABC and Carsey-Werner under those provisions. Hollywood hates labor, and hates shows about labor worse than any other thing. And that’s why you won’t be seeing another Roseanne anytime soon. Instead, all over the tube, you will find enterprising, overmedicated, painted-up, capitalist whores claiming to be housewives. But I’m not bitter.
Nothing real or truthful makes its way to TV unless you are smart and know how to sneak it in, and I would tell you how I did it, but then I would have to kill you. Based on Two and a Half Men’s success, it seems viewers now prefer their comedy dumb and sexist. Charlie Sheen was the world’s most famous john, and a sitcom was written around him. That just says it all. Doing tons of drugs, smacking prostitutes around, holding a knife up to the head of your wife—sure, that sounds like a dream come true for so many guys out there, but that doesn’t make it right! People do what they can get away with (or figure they can), and Sheen is, in fact, a product of what we call politely the “culture.” Where I can relate to the Charlie stuff is his undisguised contempt for certain people in his work environment and his unwillingness to play a role that’s expected of him on his own time.
But, again, I’m not bitter. I’m really not. The fact that my fans have thanked and encouraged me for doing what I used to get in trouble for doing (shooting my big mouth off) has been very healing. And somewhere along the way, I realized that TV and our culture had changed because of a woman named Roseanne Conner, whom I am honored to have written jokes for.
Barr now lives in Hawaii, where she farms macadamia nuts. She has a new book, Roseannearchy (Gallery; $26), and will return to TV in Roseanne’s Nuts, a Lifetime reality show.
An epic portrait of the eloquent, award-winning Black, lesbian, poet, mother, teacher and activist, Audre Lorde, whose writings - spanning five decades - articulated some of the most important social and political visions of the century. From Lorde's childhood roots in NYC's Harlem to her battle with breast cancer, this moving film explores a life and a body of work that embodied the connections between the Civil Rights movement, the Women's movement, and the struggle for lesbian and gay rights. At the heart of this documentary is Lorde's own challenge to "envision what has not been and work with every fiber of who we are to make the reality and pursuit of that vision irresistible."
Reviews"An inspirational testimony and powerful portrait of a remarkable woman who continues to inspire a whole new generation of women today." - Noelle Reilly, QFest, 2009
I’m not sure how it started, but I realized yesterday how woefully ignorant I am about African photographers. I can name plenty of North American, European and Asian photographers… A few less South American and Australian photographers, but still probably more than most… and then I realized that besides the members of the Bang Bang Club and Pieter Hugo I was struggling to come up with any (non-South) African photographers. Sure, I can name numerous talented Americans who have gone to Africa (some for extended periods of time, or made the move permanently), and made stellar pictures and told incredibly in-depth stories, but in my mind that’s not quite the same.
So my research began, as did my call for help on twitter. And in my education of African photographers, here are some of the incredibly talented ones you we should all be aware of:
This entry was posted on Friday, January 14th, 2011 at 3:28 pm and is filed under Photographers, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
14 Responses to “African photographers, an education”
Good selection You might also want to have a look at one great photographer : the late Seydou Keita (www.seydoukeitaphotographer.com) who has been exhibited from Tate to Fondation Cartier, etc.
Hiya! Would like to ask if you have considered any African photographers outside South Africa who are not black? I am a freelance photojournalist-photographer, I was born in Kenya and still live in Kenya. I\’m Kenyan, I have no other nationality and \’am not entitled to any other too. I have been working as a photographer since 2005 and also as a photojournalist since 2007 since the Kenyan election violence which I covered and had my work published with Reuters, McClatchy Newspapers in New York, also some other agencies including Kenyan ones. My website is unfinished and needs a lot of attention but please feel free to have a look: http://www.georginagoodwin.com
thank you for compiling this list of other African photographers. I\’m intrigued and very interested to see them. Keep digging for more and let me know please?! I am on twitter: @ggkenya
alex – thanks so much. that’s the second suggestion for seydou keita’s work. i can’t wait to see it, and i’ll definitely add it to my list. also i’m not sure why i didn’t link to goldblatt’s stuff, i’m familiar with his name, i think i just had a hard time finding a good website with his work on there. all i can really find is the goodman gallery, and their website blows. send me a better link if you’ve got one.
georgina – i was specifically trying to find photographers in south africa who weren’t white, since those were the only ones i was previously familiar with. but i had a hard time finding white african-born photographers in other countries. i also had a really hard time finding african female photographers. your work from the ethiopian drought and the kenyan elections is incredibly powerful. and i went to dia de los muertos just a year or two before you, and your pictures felt like a walk down memory lane for me. i’m glad you decided to comment. i love discovering new photographers, so thank you so much for sharing your work with me.
i’ll be glad to check out boniface mwagi’s work, too. what a great name… thanks!
Here is an other good photorapher Akintunde Akinleye from Nigeria. A belgium book was published in Dutch and France with a whole list of African photographers: Afrika: Zelfportret (selfportrait) by Koninklijk Museum voor Midden-Afrika Tervuren ( Royal museum for Middle Africa) in Tervuren Belgium and have a look at this link:
Here’s a few more African Photographers that are definitely worth checking out.
Santu Mofokeng’s portfolio: cargocollective.com/santumofokeng
Oupa Nkosi’s body of work called Black Diamonds, links to a page with a lot of African produced media about Africa: roadto2010.com/black-diamonds/
The work of Zanele Muholi: zanelemuholi.com/
Musa Nxumalo’s work: musanxumalo.com/
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The film that really marked the beginning of African cinema was Borom Sarret (1963) by Senegalese director Sembène Ousmane. Although Sudan’s Gadalla Gubara had been the first African on the continent to make a film with his documentary Song of Karthoum (1950), Sembène Ousmane remains the father figure by common consent. In tackling the story of a cart-driver subjected to the rules and regulations of the new regime, Borom Sarret sides with the poor of Dakar. This short film, which stirred consciousness and spoke out symbolically, led the way for future generations of filmmakers firmly focused on their own continent.
For the “father” of African cinema, the newly gained political independence only made sense if it was accompanied by a restoration of dignity, which had hitherto been suppressed by the weight of the administration and its reductive mechanisms (language, religion, education and the police). From the outset, cinema became the instrument of choice in this process of re-conquest: images were used to rebuild self-image, as well as the image of every population on the continent. In his cinema seminar at Cannes in 2005, Sembène Ousmanerecalled: “I was gripped by a need to ‘discover’ Africa. Not just Senegal, but just about the entire continent… I became aware that I had to learn to make films if I really wanted to reach my people. A film can be seen and understood even by illiterate people – a book cannot speak to entire populations!” Sembène Ousmane laid the aesthetic foundations of his filmmaking (very close to Italian neo-realism) and set them in a pan-Africanist context. The initial equation was simple: independent Africa “needed” filmmakers who could (re-)awaken consciousness to counter colonial cinema, which had set out merely to entertain its audience, alienating them in the process. Around fifteen films made their mark over the course of this first decade (1964-1974). All dealt with either the colonial past and the liberation movements, or cultural assimilation and the problems of the newly independent states (corruption, bureaucracy, the shifting of wealth, etc.) The traumatic aftermath of the colonial past was addressed in Oumarou Ganda’s Cabascabo(1)(1968, Niger), Sarah Maldoror’s Monagambee (1968, Angola), Michael Raeburn’s Rhodesia Countdown (1969, Rhodesia), Sembène Ousmane’s Emitai (1971), and Nana Mahomo’s Last Grave at Dimbaza (1974, South Africa).
Cabascabo, 1968
Emitaï, 1971
Concerto For an Exile, 1968
The films frequently focused on the suffocating links between the European and African capitals, as in Concerto For an Exile and Take Care, France by Désiré Écaré (1968 and 1970, Ivory Coast) or Djibril Diop-Mambéty’s Badou Boy (1970, Senegal). Other themes explored include the loss of identity through immigration, as in Sembène Ousmane’sBlack Girl(1966), or the conflict with new regimes or corruption as in his The Money Order (1968) and Xala (1974).
Black Girl, Sembène Ousmane, 1966
Reconstructing Africa’s own history; weaving its identity
The Africa that made its entry into the cinematic world in 1975 had thrown off its colonial shackles. Nine films were selected at Cannes between 1975 and 1985, all of which endeavoured to reflect African reality while examining the cultural roots of societies undergoing change. One image could serve as a common denominator for works as varied as N’Diangane by Mahama Johnson Traoré (1975, Senegal), Harvest: 3,000 Years by Haile Gerima (1976, Ethiopia), Ceddo by Sembène Ousmane (1977), Ababacar Samb-Makharam’s Jom(1981, Senegal) and Souleymane Cissé’s The Wind (Finyé, 1982, Mali): that of a pendulum constantly swinging between the present and the past. It is in this movement, with its focus on group identity (whether in cities or villages) in which individuals exist only in relation to a common destiny, that the films of this period can be contextualised. These films set out to recapture their country’s history: the stories of everyday men and women reflecting those of the earliest narratives and myths.
Jom, Ababacar Samb, 1981
The Wind, Souleymane Cissé, 1982
Rather than praising the brave feats of one particular character, it is “the spirit of resistance” that Sembène commends in Emitai (1971) and Ceddo (1977), just as Ababacar Samb-Makharam celebrates a sense of honour (Jom) rather than singing a eulogy to one particular man of honour. The aim of these films is to bear witness, rather than present a hero in the Western sense of the term. This rather disconcerting (for Westerners) rule of thumb, coupled with the difficulty of classifying these films into production-distribution categories, explains the relative difficulty they encountered in winning over European audiences. This reduced key films in cinematographic history, such as Djibril Diop Mambéty’s Touki Bouki(1973) orThe Wind (Finyé, 1982) to mere secondary status. African cinema had not yet emerged from its ghetto, in the sense that it had not yet acquired or won international stature. It was entirely devoted to marking out its own cultural and human space, while its filmmakers staked out their territory. The challenge in the 1980s was to achieve recognition on a national and international scale.
Touki Bouki, Djibril Diop Mambéty, 1973
1987: Yeelen (Brightness)
Souleymane Cissé
Idrissa Ouedraogo
The real turning point for African cinema occurred in 1987 with the selection of Yeelen (Brightness) by the Malian Souleymane Cissé for the official competition on the one hand, and of Yam Daabo (The Choice) by Burkina Faso’s Idrissa Ouedraogo for the Critics’ Week on the other. Yeelen was in fact the first Black African Film to compete at Cannes, and the film played its part to the full. The initiatory voyage undertaken by its main character setting out to master the forces surrounding him mirrors that of African cinema in the world of festivals – and Cannes in particular. The next steps were Raymond Rajaonarivelo’s Tabataba (1988, Madagascar) and Idrissa Ouedraogo’s Yaaba (1988, Burkina Faso), both of which featured in the Directors’ Fortnight. Then Tilaï (1990) by the prolific Ouedraogo, once again selected for the official competition.
Yeelen, Souleymane Cissé, 1987
Tilaï , Idrissa Ouedraogo, 1990
But then came the events of 1991, which certain journalists hungry for an exotic headline labelled the “Black Croisette”. For the first time, there were four African feature films at Cannes: Ta Dona by Adama Drabo (Mali), Sango Malo by Bassek Ba Kobhio (Cameroon), and Laada by Drissa Touré (Burkina Faso) were screened at Un Certain Regard, while Pierre Yaméogo’s Laafi (Burkina Faso) was selected for the Critics’ Week. The decade turned out to be a prolific one: Hyenas by Djibril Diop Mambéty was entered for the international competition in 1992, as was a brilliant adaptation of Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s The Visit. Meanwhile, tiny Guinea-Bissau made its entry at Un Certain Regard with Flora Gomes’s Udju Azul di Yonta, along with October, by unknown Mauritanian filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako.
Hyenas, 1992
Udju Azul di Yonta, 1992
October, 1993
Attitudes towards films made in sub-Saharan Africa have changed. The strength of the themes, the unique relationships not only to a film’s locale but also to its sound and music, and the staging ideas (imbued with a sophisticated bareness) developed by African directors have provided the answers sought by so many. Beyond the obvious themes, what was once considered disconcerting has come to be seen as a sign of vitality and evidence of a constantly renewed creative energy. The link to an oral tradition is expressed by symbolic, dramatic or amusing images that are as subtle as proverbs. When, in 1991, African cinema enjoyed its “merry month of May” as the late lamented Jacques Le Glou put it, it seemed as if African cinema had at last taken off. But such a view did not take Africa’s fragile economic situation into account, or the dependence of these filmmakers on funding from countries in the North. A closer look at African film production reveals that the number of films made each year is varied and cyclical. Everything depends on the support policies of European organisations and administrations, and their levels of funding. To take just the last two decades: there were peaks of production in the early and mid 1990s as a result of significant, regular and well-distributed support, before the machine seemed to grind to a halt.
Since then, a whole new set of directors have come to the fore: Abderrahmane Sissako (Life on Earth - 1998, Heremakono - 2002, Bamako - 2006), Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (Abouna - 2002, Daratt - 2006, A Screaming Man - 2011- Chad), Flora Gomes (Po di Sangui - 1996, Nha Fala - 2002) and Newton Aduaka (Ezra - 2007- Nigeria). Meanwhile, Sembène Ousmane achieved a brilliant coda to his career with Moolaadé (2004). These key works nonetheless remain shining exceptions in an impoverished cinematographic landscape characterised by lack of commitment from African funders or states towards their filmmakers and producers. Will new digital productions lead to a long hoped-for renaissance? This seems unlikely in the near future, but then, Africa has always had an astonishing ability to surprise us!
Po di Sangui, Flora Gomes, 1996
Daratt, Mahamat Saleh Haroun, 2006
Bamako, Abderrahmane Sissako, 2006
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(1) : Jean Rouch was the one who “discovered” Oumarou Ganda in I, a Negro (1958) and encouraged him (as he did a number of African filmmakers) to make his own films. Far from “viewing Africans as insects”, Jean Rouch knew how to combine an ethnologist’s values with the aesthetic demands of an accomplished film director. As a humanist, he showed respect for others as well as for himself.
Runners-Up Kirsten Rian • “It’s better to know in advance that we are going to fail.” (from 101 Experiments in the Philosophy of Everyday Life) - poem(PDF) Steven Schroeder• souls falling(for Katia Mitova) – poem(PDF)
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January 14th, 2011 at 7:20 pm
Good selection
You might also want to have a look at one great photographer : the late Seydou Keita (www.seydoukeitaphotographer.com) who has been exhibited from Tate to Fondation Cartier, etc.
January 15th, 2011 at 1:50 pm
Ad Seydou Keita and David Goldblatt
January 16th, 2011 at 11:25 am
Senegalese photographer Boubacar Touré Mandémory is one African photographer I think of to add to your list above.
January 18th, 2011 at 12:04 pm
Hiya!
Would like to ask if you have considered any African photographers outside South Africa who are not black? I am a freelance photojournalist-photographer, I was born in Kenya and still live in Kenya. I\’m Kenyan, I have no other nationality and \’am not entitled to any other too.
I have been working as a photographer since 2005 and also as a photojournalist since 2007 since the Kenyan election violence which I covered and had my work published with Reuters, McClatchy Newspapers in New York, also some other agencies including Kenyan ones.
My website is unfinished and needs a lot of attention but please feel free to have a look:
http://www.georginagoodwin.com
thank you for compiling this list of other African photographers. I\’m intrigued and very interested to see them. Keep digging for more and let me know please?!
I am on twitter:
@ggkenya
Thank you!
Georgina Goodwin
January 18th, 2011 at 12:07 pm
You should also look at Boniface Mwagi’s work. Kenyan photographer.
email:kenyaphoto@gmail.com
website: http://www.bonifacemwangi.com
January 18th, 2011 at 11:33 pm
remic – thank you. can’t wait to have a look.
January 18th, 2011 at 11:35 pm
alex – thanks so much. that’s the second suggestion for seydou keita’s work. i can’t wait to see it, and i’ll definitely add it to my list. also i’m not sure why i didn’t link to goldblatt’s stuff, i’m familiar with his name, i think i just had a hard time finding a good website with his work on there. all i can really find is the goodman gallery, and their website blows. send me a better link if you’ve got one.
January 18th, 2011 at 11:35 pm
awesome. i found a flickr set for his work, and there’s some nice stuff in there. appreciate the comment.
January 18th, 2011 at 11:42 pm
georgina – i was specifically trying to find photographers in south africa who weren’t white, since those were the only ones i was previously familiar with. but i had a hard time finding white african-born photographers in other countries. i also had a really hard time finding african female photographers. your work from the ethiopian drought and the kenyan elections is incredibly powerful. and i went to dia de los muertos just a year or two before you, and your pictures felt like a walk down memory lane for me. i’m glad you decided to comment. i love discovering new photographers, so thank you so much for sharing your work with me.
i’ll be glad to check out boniface mwagi’s work, too. what a great name… thanks!
January 29th, 2011 at 9:23 am
Africa is a Country often features African photographers: http://africasacountry.com/?s=photography. It’s a great blog – music, critical theory, current events.
February 1st, 2011 at 5:06 am
Here is an other good photorapher Akintunde Akinleye from Nigeria. A belgium book was published in Dutch and France with a whole list of African photographers: Afrika: Zelfportret (selfportrait) by Koninklijk Museum voor Midden-Afrika Tervuren ( Royal museum for Middle Africa) in Tervuren Belgium and have a look at this link:
http://www.africultures.com/php/index.php?nav=rubrique&sr=4
February 6th, 2011 at 2:56 am
Thank you for putting this together!
February 10th, 2011 at 4:44 am
Glad my list was useful, then again i’d also consider myself but that would be egotistical, no?
February 28th, 2011 at 4:42 pm
Here’s a few more African Photographers that are definitely worth checking out.
Santu Mofokeng’s portfolio: cargocollective.com/santumofokeng
Oupa Nkosi’s body of work called Black Diamonds, links to a page with a lot of African produced media about Africa: roadto2010.com/black-diamonds/
The work of Zanele Muholi: zanelemuholi.com/
Musa Nxumalo’s work: musanxumalo.com/