VIDEO: The Smiling Eyes - A Portrait of Malick Sidibé - photography > 2DM Blogazine

DOLCE VITA AFRICANA

Dolce Vita Africana Synopsis

A documentary portrait of the African photographer Malick Sidibe, and a journey through Malian history inspired by his iconic images. Sidibe's snapshots from the late 50s through to the early 70s capture the carefree spirit of a youth asserting their freedom from colonialism in the early days of Malian independence - until a coup ushered in decades of austere military dictatorship. So this is a film not only about art, but also about a culture reflected through a camera lens, in a country that today is one of the poorest in the world.

__________________________

The Smiling Eyes

– A Portrait of Malick Sidibé

“Venice is beautiful, but it misses energy, while here in Africa you could still feel it. Maybe less than in the past since young people are more lonely today, but they are finding themselves again. My pictures are made of these feelings; joy and youth.”

Malik Sidibé puts off his black glasses, his face lights up and a broad smile full of life rises on it.

I’ve tried to get in contact with him four years ago, when I was in Bamako for work. I would have liked to interview him, but he wasn’t in Mali at that time and afterwards we lost sight of each other. I needed a pretext to go back and to be able to spend some hours with one of the greatest African photographers at work today; the first photographer awarded by Golden Lion at Venice Biennale (2007) with a curriculum vitae full of awards and important exhibitions such as the Hasselblad Award, the solo show at Pinacoteca Gianni and Marella Agnelli in Turin and the one at Cartier Foundation in Paris.

“You see…” he pointed at the shelf with all his cameras aligned in a row, in his small studio located in a dusty street in Bamako. “You see, those are cameras that people brought to me to repair, and then left here because they didn’t have money to pay me or because they got lost.” He disappears for a while and reappears with some stuffed but tidy books of contacts from the 60’s. “What a wonderful period… you danced, and clubs were full of people who wanted to stay together. I went round the clubs and took pictures, which I sold the day after. I put posters outside my studio, people of my city knew me. Film was seen as a serious thing and there were a lot of young Casanovas, who waited in a queue for being shot with girls while dancing”.

André Magnin, Sidibé’s dealer, laughs and says to me “Vittore, that’s the way Malik is, he remains genuine, he never forgot his background and he still has the wonder of childhood, which leads him despite his age.”


Malik answers my questions composedly. I’m amazed of his total lack of influences and his spontaneity, even when he confesses not being interested in some photography that depicts the clichéd Africa, which is used by magazines and foreign photographers. Suddenly he stops talking and says: “That’s enough! Stop talking, it’s time to take pictures”. He asks me my digital camera and he starts shooting. Then he turns on the lights of his studio – made from white painted cans – and among the reflective tools made of old umbrellas, I see a tripod and his Hasselblad.

“I wanted a unique light, soft and diffused, and I change the backcloths once every two or three years. I’m very demanding, so it’s hard to find something that is perfectly suitable for my way of working.”

The sun goes down. A continuous flow of young European photographers drop by looking for a boost from the master and it interrupts our chat. Malik lavishes smiles and good words to everybody, while people point hastily their iPads bombarding him with a lot of images, all too similar to each other.

Then we look at the big black and white prints, his most well known portraits. While turning over the pictures, Malik tells me a story of each subject, person or small village in the middle of nowhere. It would take at least a month to go through them all, but my flight back is the day after. I walk away in the dark of the night, which here at the equator takes you unaware. A touch of melancholy creeps into my chest.

Vittore Buzzi

 

VIDEO: Latin America's media battlefields > Al Jazeera English

Latin America's

media battlefields

From Argentina to Venezuela and Mexico, some of the year's most compelling media stories have come from one continent.

Last Modified: 22 Dec 2012 09:02

One continent, multiple media battlefields.

This year, some of our most compelling stories have come from Latin America. During the Mexican presidential elections, the country's media giant Televisa stood accused of colluding with the man who is now president of the Republic, Enrique Pena Nieto and his party. Meanwhile, the media death toll continued to rise in the country's bloody drugs war. In central America, journalists continued to face the dangers of reporting impunity in a region scarred by the legacy of civil war. Otto Perez Molina, Guatemala's former army chief and new president pledged to protect journalists and freedom of expression - but will he succeed? And the mother of all media stories: the battle between media conglomerates and democratically elected left-wing presidents around the continent. Ecuador's Rafael Correa was one of those leaders: press freedom pariah for some, press freedom fighter for others. This year he took the country's media to court for trying to incite a coup to overthrow him - and he offered WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

As the year comes to an end, we have put together a special edition with three very different stories. In Argentina, the legal showdown between the government and the country's most powerful media group Clarin. In 2009, the Kirchner government pushed through a media reform law that was as contentious as it was comprehensive. The law is designed to break up media conglomerates. Media reform has been on the cards since the end of the dictatorship and her supporters say the reform is long overdue. Critics say the target of the legislation is just Clarin and that freedom of expression and the president's credibility is on the line. This is one of Argentina's most contentious struggles over power and public influence in years and its only just heating up.

In Mexico, journalists are some of the first in the firing line in a drugs war that has claimed more than 60,000 lives. This year alone, at least 27 journalists have been killed; media outlets have been bombed and even those who thought social media might be a safer way to report have died in the attempt to fill the information vacuum. In this part of the show, we team up with Al Jazeera's documentary programme Witness to bring you the story of a photographer Ernesto Martinez working in the western Mexican state of Sinaloa. Filmed by Rick Rowley and John Gibler, the report follows Martinez for two days and reveals the risks some journalists are prepared to take to report what has become one of the world's deadliest beats.

And finally, we look at Venezuela's offering to the global news market, Telesur. Launched in 2005, it was billed as the 'Voice of the South, from the South': an attempt to bypass and decentre US-based media representations of the region with a regional alternative. Some say this is a timely alternative to the mainstream. Critics say it is a mere propaganda tool for the man who funds it: the ailing president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. In the past few weeks, there has been round-the-clock coverage of Chavez's declining health and in a country hard-pressed to find a successor with Chavez's political or televisual charisma, this is a story that could well shake the foundations of Venezuela's Bolivarian revolution - and the future of Telesur itself. We will be watching those developments and the others around the continent in 2013. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the show.

 

HISTORY: Way Up North In Dixie (so-treu: Relying on family and public records...) > Dust Tracks On a Road

so-treu:   Relying on family and public records and oral history, the authors (Howard Sacks is chair of the Department of Sociology/Anthropology at Kenyon College; Judith Sacks is an editor and researcher) present a credible and carefully researched case which attributes authorship of the Confederate anthem Dixie to an African American family of musicians. Thomas and Ellen Snowden, liberated from slavery and having moved to the Ohio frontier, formed the Snowden Family Band; they and then their children performed banjo and fiddle music for black and white audiences from the 1850s to the early 1900s. Dan Emmett, a white minstrel performer, claimed to have written Dixie in 1859; but the authors argue that the Snowdens, who swapped songs with Emmett, either wrote the song or coauthored it. The Sacks’s analysis of 18th-century African American musical culture documents the ways in which this music was appropriated by white performers.  perfect example. the song that was the anthem for post-Civil War “lost cause” white southerners was originally created by *drumroll please* black people yeyy!!!!!

AND THE BEAT GOES ON... AND ON... AND ON

so-treu:

Relying on family and public records and oral history, the authors (Howard Sacks is chair of the Department of Sociology/Anthropology at Kenyon College; Judith Sacks is an editor and researcher) present a credible and carefully researched case which attributes authorship of the Confederate anthem Dixie to an African American family of musicians. Thomas and Ellen Snowden, liberated from slavery and having moved to the Ohio frontier, formed the Snowden Family Band; they and then their children performed banjo and fiddle music for black and white audiences from the 1850s to the early 1900s. Dan Emmett, a white minstrel performer, claimed to have written Dixie in 1859; but the authors argue that the Snowdens, who swapped songs with Emmett, either wrote the song or coauthored it. The Sacks’s analysis of 18th-century African American musical culture documents the ways in which this music was appropriated by white performers.

perfect example. the song that was the anthem for post-Civil War “lost cause” white southerners was originally created by *drumroll please*

black people yeyy!!!!!

 

ESSAY: WOUNDED

 

 

 

Wounded

 

All five of our children were sitting, their big eyes furtively looking around, each one both anxious and fearful to hear what I had to say. Tayari, her voice steely and cold, had told me I had to be the one to tell Asante, Mtume, Kiini, Tuta and Tiaji. And now the time had come.

 

The usually active siblings were silently, even sullenly, bunched at one end of the table, occasionally fidgeting, resentful like kids waiting for a whipping they all would receive because of something that only one of them had done. Tayari did not look up or at me. I sucked up some air, screwed up my courage, and proceeded to make the dreaded announcement.

 

The whole house on Tennessee Street had been holding its breath waiting on Kalamu’s proclamation, a statement that would signal permission to exhale. I don’t remember what I said, nor who spoke up when I half-heartedly asked if anyone had a question or something they wanted to say.

 

None of us knew what all was going to happen next nor what this rearrangement would bode for the immediate future.

 

After years and years of getting along, including all of us weathering and reconstituting ourselves following Tayari’s brain aneurism operation, no one at the table, surely not Tayari nor the oldest of the young quintet, Asante, now suffering through her sweet sixteen year, but also and paradoxically not even the man whose steadfast daddy had set the example for him of what it meant to be a husband and father, none of the attentive ears  really wanted to hear Kalamu say that he and mama were breaking up and that he was leaving home.

 

When I uttered whatever fate-filled words I spoke I was determined not to go back on my declaration. I really can’t recall the specific syllables I muttered, but regardless of the haziness of my memory, what still shakes me is the repulsive feeling of self mutilation, even though at that time I rationalized my actions as corrective surgery.

 

Cutting loose was something I knew how to do. At various moments in my life, I have not hesitated when I decided to sever ties. I have become acclimated to dealing with the freedom of uncertainty even as I am certain that I will continue to push forward notwithstanding that too often my moving forward means leaving others behind.

 

Although six other people were present and feeling their own pain, none of them was aware of what I was really doing. I had pulled out the ever rigid knife of my pig-iron-strong willfulness, unsentimentally pressed the edge to my nostrils and proceeded to chop away at my big-ass nose all because I had come to the conclusion that my marriage had run into the wailing wall and had posted a big, red stop sign displaying a one word curse.

 

Divorce.

 

I was pulling the plug. Tayari and I were separating.

 

It’s over a quarter century later and the emotional wound still aches a bit whenever I place my finger on that unraveling.

 

Once you cut it off, your nose never grows back the same way it was before you amputated it in a vain bid to save face. Was living my life the way I wanted really worth breaking up our family? Regardless of the answer—an answer that varied from time to time over the last thirty years or so—regardless, the deed was done and never rescinded.

 

I do not like to think about that day but sometimes like a hurricane that unexpectedly turns or doubles-back, the awfulness of that day engulfs me in a flood of harsh, unforgettable recollections, forcing me to recognize just how deeply I wounded myself.

 

—kalamu ya salaam

 

 

VIDEO + AUDIO: Samuel Yirga » Real World Records

Samuel Yirga

Ethiopia

Samuel Yirga's musical life so far has been full of obstacles: social restrictions, family regulations, hurdles thrown up by the reality of life. Yet in the face of all of this, the young and gifted pianist who grew up in the capital of Ethiopia and the centre of the heady mix of music known as Ethiojazz, has at last had his time to shine.

Bringing contemporary and classical jazz, celebrated pop songs from the golden era of Ethiopian music, traditional Ethiopian rhythms and deeply-felt classical piano undertones, this young man from Addis has opened up a whole new door on a musical genre and region which has already grabbed the interest of many people around the world.

Samuel was just ten years old when he knew he wanted to become a musician. At home he devoured the Ethiopian pop music and American R and B that he heard on the radio and cassettes but he had no encouragement from his parents who were afraid that learning music would distract him from his academic studies. One day, however, he heard that Addis Ababa's Yared School of Music was holding auditions for new students. The following week, at the age of 16, against his parents' wishes and having never touched a musical instrument in his life, Samuel entered the school and, with a coin tapping out rhythms on the top of the piano, breezed through the exams. Of the 2,500 people who took the exam, Samuel came third.

Samuel Yirga - Live at Momo (London) from Enchanted Tunes on Vimeo.


But the struggles weren't over. His parents eventually forgave him but it was one of the school's teachers who put up his next hurdle. "Because I came third in the exams," he says, smiling wryly at the memory, "I was allowed to choose whatever instrument I liked. I chose the piano." But the head of department looked at his hands and said it wasn't possible. "She said my hands were too small. I don't believe in small hands or big hands: music is not about that, music is about what's inside." Samuel was undaunted. Eventually, the school agreed he could study the piano that he'd so longed to get his hands on. And there began a relationship with the instrument that has brought him to musical acclaim in his hometown of Addis and now, with his debut album, to an international audience. He was determined, after all the obstacles he'd already mounted, that he was going to be the best pianist in Ethiopia.

 

Samuel took to his new instrument with unbridled enthusiasm and dedication. "I would go to school at 6.30am and at 11 pm I would go home. Usually I missed all my other studies and just played the piano on my own. It was really tiring," he laughs, "but it was my dream to be in music, and the piano was what I wanted to play, so that's why I pushed myself so hard." Samuel played like this, for more than 12 hours a day, for three years. "I was so into the music," he says, "that I didn't bother eating."

Samuel played the classical music he was given by his teachers but he also had a growing interest in Ethiopian music, from the popular wedding and folk songs he'd heard as a child, to the Ethio-jazz legends that, in the last decade, had made a comeback. Here he found himself once more in trouble with the school.

"I was playing my own versions of these Ethiopian songs, but the teachers passing the piano room would come in and ask me what I was doing. We weren't allowed to play any contemporary music because it was a classical music school. They would say that Ethiopian music was simple. I was very angry about that, because I'd always had a dream to change my country and its music. I didn't agree with them but I would just tell them that if something was simple, then we should try to make it better. We need to research and experiment."

And experiment he did. By the time the music school asked him never to come back because of his insistence on playing contemporary music, he was playing funk and Ethiojazz with one band, playing jazz gigs at a local club, experimenting with popular Ethiopian songs and creating contemporary versions with another band, and at the same playing salsa and classical music. Wherever his music went, however, he always held the beat of Ethiopian music at its heart. Samuel plays with Addis funk band, Nubian Arc and is a member of the UK/Ethiopian collective, Dub Colossus.

 

'Guzo' is Samuel Yirga's debut album, recorded in Addis Ababa and Real World Studios. The album is just the start of Samuel's journey, where he has explored Ethiojazz, soul and funk, American jazz, and Latin and classical music. Whilst there are deeply virtuosic piano solos, there are also more upbeat songs which feature guests vocalists The Creole Choir of Cuba, a Cuban choir whose songs go back to their Haitian roots; Mel Gara, a British singer whose origins are in Iraq; and Nicolette, a Nigerian-British singer, famous for her collaborations with Massive Attack. The album is produced by Dubulah (aka Nick Page), the British musician and producer behind Transglobal Underground, Syriana and Dub Colossus.

__________________________

 

 

 

 

PUB: Iowa Review

CONTEST RULES

Each January since 2003, The Iowa Review has invited submissions to The Iowa Review Awards, a writing contest in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. (For information on our new category in photography, click here.) Past judges have included Brenda Hillman, Li-Young Lee, Ann Patchett, Michael Cunningham, Jo Ann Beard, and Phillip Lopate. See past winners here.

Judges for the 2013 Iowa Review Awards are Mary Jo Bang (poetry), ZZ Packer (fiction), and Susan Orlean (nonfiction).

Winners receive $1,500; first runners-up receive $750. Winners and runners-up will be published in our December 2013 issue.

Rules

Submit up to 25 pages of prose (double-spaced) or 10 pages of poetry (one poem or several, but no more than one poem per page). Work must be previously unpublished. Simultaneous submissions are fine assuming you inform us of acceptance elsewhere.

Judges will select winners from a group of finalists chosen by Iowa Review editors. All manuscripts, whether selected as finalists or not, are considered for publication.

To submit online, visit iowareview.submittable.com between January 1 and 31, 2013, and follow the instructions.

To submit via mail, please follow these instructions:
  • Manuscripts must include a cover page listing your name, address, e-mail address and/or telephone number, and the title of each work, but your name should not appear on the manuscript itself.

  • Enclose a $20 entry fee; make checks payable to The Iowa Review. 

  • Enclose an additional $10 for a yearlong subscription to the magazine (optional).

  • Label your envelope as a contest entry, for example Contest: Fiction.

  • One entry per envelope. (If you submit more than one entry, even within the same genre, you must enclose a $20 entry fee with each entry.) 

  • Postmark submissions between January 1 and January 31, 2013.

  • Enclose a SASE for final word on your work. (Manuscripts will not be returned.)

  • Mail submissions to The Iowa Review, 308 EPB, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242

Eligibility and Conflicts of Interest
Current students, faculty, or staff of the University of Iowa are not eligible to enter the contest.

Work is ineligible to win our contest if it is slated for publication before December 2013, whether in another magazine or as part of a book, or if it has been named winner or runner-up in any other contest. Please withdraw work from our contest immediately if these conditions apply.

Judges are instructed not to award the prize to entrants with whom they have had a personal or professional relationship. Despite reading the entries with author names removed, judges may sometimes be able to guess the identity of the entrant. Even if they can't tell during the judging process, they have the right to change their decision if it turns out that the entrant is someone with whom there is any appearance of conflict of interest. Therefore, we advise entrants not to enter the contest if the judge is someone they know personally or have worked with professionally.

>via: http://www.iowareview.org

PUB: Ohio State Fiction Prize

OHIO STATE FICTION PRIZE

Formerly known as the Sandstone Prize

Rules

This annual award is given to the manuscript collection of short fiction selected by an independent judge to be the best submitted. The winning author will receive publication under a standard book contract that includes a cash prize of $1,500 as an advance against royalties. The winner and finalists will be announced before June 30.

Eligibility Requirements

  • Submissions may include short stories, novellas, or a combination of both (but a single novella is not an eligible submission).

  • The competition is open to all writers in English.

  • Previously published stories or novellas may be included in the manuscript.

  • Current students and employees of The Ohio State University are ineligible.

  • Manuscripts must be between 150 and 300 typed pages (approx. 40,000 to 80,000 words).

  • Individual stories or novellas in the collection may not exceed 125 pages (approx. 35,000 words).

  • No translations unless done entirely by the author.

Submission Format

  • Manuscripts must be typed, double-spaced, on quality white 8 1/2" x 11" paper, 250–300 words per page, one side only, pages numbered consecutively.

  • Crisp photocopies are acceptable.

  • Your identity is not revealed to the judges, so your name should not appear anywhere on the manuscript. Instead, please include the following with your submission:
     
    • a cover sheet with name, street and email address, and phone numbers

    • an acknowledgement page with publication history for any previously published work

    • a title page listing title and approx. word count

    • a table of contents page listing only the stories and/or novellas and page numbers
  • Include a self-addressed stamped envelope so we can notify you of the contest results.

  • Include a self-addressed stamped postcard if you wish to receive confirmation of receipt of your manuscript.

  • OSU Press assumes no responsibility for lost or damaged manuscripts.

  • Do not send your only copy. Manuscripts will not be returned.

Deadline information

Manuscripts must be postmarked in the month of January and be accompanied by a nonrefundable fee of $20 (U.S. dollars). Send check or money order (no cash) made payable to The Ohio State University.

Mail to

Fiction Editor 
The Ohio State University Press
180 Pressey Hall
1070 Carmack Road
Columbus, OH 43210-1002

 

>via: https://ohiostatepress.org

 

PUB: Cultural Center of Cape Cod Poetry Competition > Poets & Writers

Poetry Competition

Deadline:
January 31, 2013

Entry Fee: 
$15

E-mail address: 
lwolk@cultural-center.org

A prize of $1,000 is given annually for a poem. Cornelius Eady will judge. Submit up to three poems totaling no more than five pages with a $15 entry fee by January 31. E-mail or visit the website for complete guidelines.

Cultural Center of Cape Cod, Poetry Competition, 307 Old Main Street, South Yarmouth, MA 02664. (508) 394-7100. Lauren Wolk, Associate Director.

via pw.org

 

VIDEO: John Akomfrah in Conversation with Alan Marcus > Vimeo

John Akomfrah

in Conversation with

Alan Marcus

<p>John Akomfrah in Conversation with Alan Marcus from Peacock Visual Arts on Vimeo.</p>

John Akomfrah's 1986 film, Handsworth Songs, which explores race and civil strife in 1980s Britain, won seven international awards including the British Film Institute's prestigious Grierson Award for Best Documentary. His more than 20 features and documentaries have achieved acclaim in the USA and Britain, including Martin Luther King: Days of Hope (1997), Lawless (2001) and The Lie of the Land (2005). John Akomfrah is also founder of the influential Black Audio Film Collective.

via vimeo.com