[ecrea] African Film and Politics Conference

African Film and Politics Conference

Conference
organised by the
Africa
Media Centre, University of Westminster
In association with the Royal African
Society’s FILM AFRICA

Date:
Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 November 2013
Venue: University of Westminster, 309 Regents Street, London W1B
2UW

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Jean-Pierre Bekolo.

Jean-Pierre Bekolois an award
winning film director, writer, artist, professor and social activist. He has
been making films about his native Cameroon for the past twenty years. 
His imaginativework criticizes both his country’s
dictatorship as well as Western cinematic conventions. Bekolo’s latest
film ‘The President’ will form the
case study for his talk about making movies from a mental and physical 
place.
‘The President’ is a satire that questions his country’s catastrophic
experiments with Democracy. ‘The
President’ will be screened on Sunday followed by a Q & A with the
director

KEYNOTE
SPEAKER: Imruh Bakari

Imruh Bakariis a writer, academic and filmmaker
born in St Kitts. He has published two poetry collection, Sounds & 
Echoes (Karnak House,
1980) and Secret Lives (Bogle-L’Ouverture, 1986). From 1999 to 2004 he 
was Festival Director of the
Zanzibar International Film Festival. His films include African Tales – 
Short Film Series (2005/2008), Blue Notes and Exiled Voices (1991), The 
Mark of the Hand (1986) and Riots and Rumours of Riots (1981). He
lives and works between the UK and East Africa. He is a Senior Lecturer 
in Film
and Media Studies at the University of Winchester.

Presentation and
Screening: Daniela
Ricci

Daniela
Ricci is an academic and filmmaker. Her 2013 film ‘Creation in Exile’ 
featuresNewton Aduaka, John Akomfrah, Haile Gerima, Dani
Kouyaté and Jean Odoutan: five major African filmmakers in ‘exile’.This
documentary follows their personal and artistic paths from Paris to 
Washington,
from Ouagadougou to London, via Uppsala. Their everyday lives echo with
sequences of their films. Through the gazes of these filmmakers, in 
search of
harmony between different cultures, masks fall and myths are smashed.


This is a two-day conference on African film and politics in
changing local and global contexts. Film in Africa, just like popular music,
theatre and literature, has reflected and affected past and present 
political
realities. African filmmakers have developed effective and powerful film
stories infused with political ideologies, values and everyday politics.
Global, national, regional and personal political themes are evident in 
some of
the most popular African films. Some of the films become popular because
audiences easily recognize the political portrayals and subtle themes 
reflected
on the screens.

The African film industry is itself ridden with tension,
power and politics. Funding, training opportunities, language use, story
structures and roles with films are often distributed according to existing
political priorities. It is arguable that power relations have followed
political thinking. Conditions and the environment of filmmaking in 
Africa have
been political since colonial times. After independence film politics is 
more
evident in front of and behind the camera. African film audiences are 
now using
social media in ways that have complicated the political dimensions.

However, there are questions about how power and politics
has been included in African film. Which African political story is told
through films? Whose voice is represented? Who speaks on behalf of whom? To
what extent have films expanded identities, power and political 
relations? In
what way has politics influenced film production, distribution, 
exhibition and
consumption in Africa? If political stability and political 
socialization are
the answers in the African film industry, what then are the questions?

This conference seeks to debate issues of politics,
ideology, power and diversity in African film industry. It seeks to examine,
amongst other issues, how broadly-defined politics relates to generational,
gender, ethnic, racial, traditional/modernity and language issues in African
films. The conference welcomes contributions that will debate these 
issues from
different theoretical and methodological orientations.

Approximately 40 papers will be presented on topics
including:

•
Political history, myth and identity in African film;
•
Racial, class, religious and ethnic politics in African film;
•
Audiences and the reception of politics in African films
•
Indigenous language films and everyday politics
•
Gender and sexual politics in African cinema;
•
Politics of exhibition, financing and distribution of African film;
•
Power politics and crises in African Cinema
•
Film festivals and the development of national cinemas in Africa;
•
Auteur politics, Political film genres and form
•
Collaborative filmmaking in the global north/trans-national collaborations
•
Liberation and emancipation in African film philosophy
•
Filmmakers exiled or imprisoned for their work.
•
Institutions, policies and film agencies


PROGRAMME AND
REGISTRATION

This two day conference will take place on
Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 November, 2013. The fee for registration (which
applies to all participants, including presenters) will be £175, with a
concessionary rate of £95 for students, to cover all
conference documentation, refreshments lunches and administration costs.

Registration is now open. Please download
the registration form from

http://www.westminster.ac.uk/research/a-z/camri/events/camri-events-calendar/2013/african-film-and-politics-conference

and send to Amanda Wheeler (A.wheeler /at/ westminster.ac.uk)

You may also wish to download an overall
schedule for the conference and a list of
suggested hotels and youth hostels.



Dr. Winston Mano
Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI)
Department of Journalism and Mass Communication
School of Media, Arts and Design
University of Westminster
Harrow Campus
Watford Road
Harrow, Middlesex, HA1 3TP, UK
Tel: +44(0)2079115000 ext 4427
E-mail: (manow /at/ wmin.ac.uk)

Fax:+44(0)2079115942


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