| The African continent is the third largest continent
on the planet and has immense diversity, so it was
divided into two Africas: Mediterranean Africa and
Sub-Saharan Africa. With an area of approximately
30.2 million square kilometers, Africa is the third
largest continent on the planet. This great territory,
inhabited by more than a billion people, presents great
physical, ethnic, cultural and economic diversity. All
of these elements contributed to a regional subdivision,
which established Mediterranean Africa (also called
Islamic or Northern Africa) and Sub-Saharan Africa.
This regionalization of the continent has the Sahara
desert as a natural divider and human aspects,
especially religion, as a cultural factor. Mediterranean
Africa, located to the north of the Sahara desert, is
composed of only five countries (Morocco, Algeria,
Tunisia, Libya and Egypt), in addition to the territory
of Western Sahara. Sub-Saharan Africa, on the other
hand, comprises the entire area located south of the
Sahara, corresponding to more than 75% of the continent.
The nations that make up Mediterranean Africa are
bathed by the Mediterranean Sea or the Atlantic
Ocean. They have physical and human characteristics
similar to those of the nations of the Middle East. The
climate is desert and most of the inhabitants are of
Arab origin and followers of Islam. Despite having
problems, this portion of the continent has the best
socioeconomic indicators in Africa.
Agriculture in this region is developed in the
vicinity of the River Nile and in the area called
Maghreb. However, the main sources of revenue come from
the production of oil, natural gas, in addition to
several other ores: phosphate, gold, copper,
etc. Tourism is another important economic activity in
Mediterranean Africa, with emphasis on Egypt and
Morocco, which receive millions of visitors annually.
With a mostly black population, Sub-Saharan Africa has
great cultural diversity. Religious plurality is a
characteristic of this continental portion, where there
are Christians, Muslims (mainly in the Sahel region),
Jews, in addition to various traditional
beliefs. Different ethnic groups have their own
dialects, dances and customs, a fact that contributes to
Africa's cultural wealth. However, in some countries,
several armed conflicts are triggered by different
ethnic groups.
Underground wealth drives mining. South Africa has
large reserves of diamond, chromium, platinum, gold (the
world's largest producer), among other ores. Another
highlight is the large production of oil and natural gas
in sub-Saharan African countries. Tourism, promoted in
several natural parks, is another important source of
financial resources.
Despite this great mineral wealth, Sub-Saharan Africa
presents several socioeconomic problems and
international organizations are not developing effective
policies to solve them. Hunger, for example, punishes
most Africans, malnutrition rates are absurd in this
region of the planet: Democratic Republic of Congo
(76%), Somalia (72%), Burundi (63%), Sierra Leone (47%)
.
According to data from the United Nations (UN), of
the 33.4 million HIV carriers in the world, 22.4 million
live in sub-Saharan Africa. About 1 in 3 adults in
Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Zimbabwe are
infected. It is estimated that the population of these
countries may be reduced by 25% by 2020, as a result of
the disease. In addition to AIDS, malaria is also
responsible for the death of several inhabitants -
annually, one million Africans die from the disease.
Given this scenario, the Human Development Indices
(HDI) of the nations that make up Sub-Saharan Africa are
the worst on the planet, reflecting the low life
expectancy and GDP per capita, in addition to the high
rates of illiteracy and infant mortality.
 Africa film
African film is born of the fact that most African countries around 1960
gained independent status and thus the opportunity to manifest African culture
and identity.
Film production systems are of the Senegalese director Ousmane Sembène
baptized mégotage. The term refers to the slow bite-by-bite realization of the
films due to the perpetual wait for raw films that affluent countries are
discarding.
There is a clear difference in the cinematic commitment in the different
parts of the continent. Along with Egypt, it is the French-speaking Maghreblands
who account for the majority of African films. Also in sub-Saharan Africa, film
production is dominated by the former French colonies, while the English- and
Portuguese-speaking countries have to a lesser extent managed to assert
themselves internationally.
In recent years South Africa has begun to assert itself on the international
film scene - in 2005 won e.g. the Xhosa-speaking U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha (Carmen
in Khayelitsha) Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and Gavin Hood's Tsotsi
won the Oscar for best foreign language film.
One of the explanations for the dominance of the French-speaking countries is
the regular financial and technical support to the film industry, which the
French state has provided its previous holdings since 1963 through the Center
National de la Cinématographie and the Ministère de la Coopération. The
English-speaking countries, on the other hand, gave up all production of feature
films in favor of documentaries and short films under government auspices.
Exceptions are Ghana and Nigeria, which have internationally acclaimed
directors such as Kwah Paintsil Ansah and Ola Balogun. Nigeria hosted a film
festival in 1992 and has a relatively large domestic production of cheaply
produced video films and popular entertainment films rooted in the National
Yoruba Theater.
The French support policy, which means, among other things, that manuscripts,
development and editing must be approved in France, has been criticized for
being of a neocolonial and patronizing nature. One of the main critics of this
policy is the Fédération Panafricaine de Cinéastes (FEPACI). It is an idealistic
association of national instructor organizations, formed in 1969. Its purpose is
to fight the French-American monopoly on film distribution and screening in
Africa.
One of the means is the nationalization of the film industry, another the
financing of the national production by tax on foreign feature films. Burkina
Faso (then Upper Volta) took the lead and clashed with the major French
distribution companies COMACICO and SECMA by nationalizing film distribution and
all six cinemas in 1970. Since then, Senegal and Mali also followed.
In 1969, FEPACI contributed to the formation of the Panafricain du Cinéma de
Ouagadougou Festival (FESPACO) in Burkina Faso. It is largely FESPACO and the
other major Pan-African film festival Journées Cinématographique de Carthage
(JCC) in Tunisia that have created the interest that the Western world from the
1980's began showing African films. Television stations such as the British
Channel Four, the Franco-German Arte and the German ZDF have become important
co-producers, just as the EU is increasingly supporting African films, and it
has given a saltwater injection to the poor sector.
The production is hardly as sporadic as before - more and more African
directors get the opportunity to try their hand at the film medium, and the
individual directors get the opportunity to make more films and thus practice
greater cinematic style security. However, the strong Western funding has also
led filmmakers to appeal more to Western audiences than to their countrymen, and
the films are mostly seen by Europeans and international festival goers, while
ordinary Africans often prefer Indian singing games or American entertainment
films.
The distribution of African films is sparse in Africa as well as in the rest
of the world - there is often only one copy of each film. Cinemas are still a
metropolitan phenomenon, although in many places attempts are being made to
reach sparsely populated areas with the help of film buses and open-air
performances.
The early African films are almost all dubbed with French or English and
often have a semi-documentary approach. These are raw depictions of life in the
big city or in the village, of the confrontation with the western world and of
problems with superstition, taboos, etc. Many are characterized by a more or
less militant showdown with the former colonial powers. This applies, for
example, to the first feature film by a black African, Ousmane Sembène La noire
de... (1966).
Filmmaker Inoussa Ousseini criticized 1970's African films for being too
influenced by European aesthetics and too far from the African audience; he
became one of the proponents of an African film with roots in the continent's
narrative tradition. And in the 1980's came a new generation of directors who
increasingly tried to convey their own roots through the film medium, and who at
the same time gave African film a full-fledged artistic expression.
Gaston Kaboré from Burkina Faso was the first with Wend Kuuni (1982), based
on the simple life in the village. The new style, and with African dialogue, was
followed by compatriot Idrissa Ouédraogo, who with films such as Yaaba (1988,
The Witch), Tilaï (1990) and Samba Traoré (1992), has won several festival
awards. The same goes for Souleymane Cissé from Mali, especially with the
picturesque and magical tale Yeelen (1987).
The rhythm of these films is predominantly leisurely like life in an African
village, while African culture in the big cities of the 1990's is a mixture of
handed down traditions and modern Western lifestyles. This was already visible
in the Senegalese Djibril Diop Mambety's (1945-98) two long feature films,
Touki-Bouki (1972) and Hyènes (1992), but was given a new expression in the
hectic clipping musical comedy of the Cameroonian Jean-Pierre Bekolo Quartier
Mozart (1992, The Mozart district), which has won several international awards.
Although films based on the African tradition are still being made, more and
more directors are distancing themselves from the cult of the specifically
African that was dominant in the 1980's. Instead, they deal with with emigration
and with the own position of the filmmakers often living in Europe in relation
to the Africa they portray - for example in the Mauritanian Abderrahmane
Sissakos (b. 1961) two award-winning films La vie sur terre (1998) and
Heremakono (2002).
In the 1970's came Ousmane Sembènes tragi-comic Mandabi (1968, money order)
on the bureaucracy in Africa as the first African film in Danish cinema
distribution. Since then, more have been added, but they can be counted on two
hands. On the other hand, more and more African films are shown at the Danish
film festivals - especially the Night Film Festival.
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