Art Matters.info :: flaunting arts and culture in Africa

The curtain came down on the 55th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival with a little known South African theatre production beating 22 other films in the official competition to the Golden Bear in what critics described as a duel of political correctness vis-à-vis art by a festival bent on proving to detractors that Berlinale's focus had indeed been Africa. Ogova Ondego reports

Even lead star Pauline Malefane was taken aback by the win of her opera film. "I am surprised," she told ArtMatters.Info at Cinemaxx Theatre in the festival's glassy and marble geometrically constructed Potsdamer Platz. She however hastened to add that "Opera is part of our lives in South African townships." An obviously elated Malefane exclaimed, "Now the whole world will be interested to know there is another side to South Africa than just runaway crime and AIDS reported in the mass media. This film showcases South African talent to the world." Commenting on allegations that U-Carmen's win had been influenced by politics, director Mark Darnford-May simply said, "Berlinale is all about film and not politics. Had politics been a consideration, then the likes of Hotel Rwanda and Sometimes in April should have been the films to win." This is the debut film for theatre director Darnford-May.

He is currently making another production in Xhosa. On her part, publicist Liz Miller told ArtMatters.Info, "Those who say our win is due to politics have not seen the film." Associate producer Lucinda Englehart who had had to return to Berlin from Cape Town to share in the glory, said she was very excited and that there would be "a big party in South Africa to celebrate this victory." Rumbi Katedza, coordinator of the Harare-based Zimbabwe International Film Festival said it was "great for South Africa to walk away with the Golden Bear for a film I find unique." She said it was innovative for South Africans to take what she termed a historically European traditional art-form into townships and claim it as their own. "It was not only fully funded by South Africa but they have also produced a fully internationally acclaimed film. I am curious to know how they did it."

Carmen eKhayeltsha (Carmen in Khayeltsha), an audience-pleasing adaptation of Bizet's opera set in a Cape Town black township but sung in Xhosa, did not even feature in the list of critics who had given top marks to films like Sophie-Scholl: The final Days by Marc Rothemund that recalls the last moments in the life of an anti-Nazi student activist, and Le Promeneur Du Champs De Mars (The late Mitterand) by French director. Other films with African stories in competition included Sometimes in April by Haitian director Raoul Peck and Man to man by Regis Wargnier that African audiovisual sector players felt was an insult to the mother continent and that it should not have been screened at Berlinale, arguably the world's second most prestigious film event alongside Venice. However other observers felt Man to Man (in which many mistakenly identified Ogova Ondego as having starred in) should have been screened but out of official competition. Four out of 22 films in 0fficial competition were about Africa that, sadly, appeared to be overshadowed by the sex theme in films (Amor Idiota, Fucking different, Color blossoms, Cycles of porn, The wayward cloud, Gigolo, Nok saek-eui-ja, Accused, Zero degrees of separation, That man: Peter Berlin, Maenner Wie wir, Prom queen, etc). Also appearing to be placed above Africa was soccer with films like One day in Europe, Tickets, Ginga, and 45-Talent Campus shots dubbed Shoot Goals! Shoot movies!

Ogova Ondego, centre, with Berlin-based Nigerian filmmaker Branwen Okpako and her Accra-based counterpart Theophilus Akatugba at HAU 2

As observers questioned the Africa focus angle, Berlinale boss Dieter Kosslick told the Press the Africa theme had not been selected but had come about "partly by chance" partly due to a German co-production treaty with South Africa in 2004. If that were the case, observers argued, the focus should then have been ‘South Africa’ and not the amorphous and misleading ‘Africa’. Indeed South Africa had a hand in the making of all films at Berlinale save for one or two others. Indeed Azania had a hand in the making of Sometimes in April, Man to Man, Hotel Rwanda, and U-Carmen in Khayeltsha. One of the only two African films in the European Film Market, Forgiveness, is by South African Ian Gabriel.

The other one was the European Union/French-funded Moolaade by Senegalese doyen of African film, Ousmane Sembene. And so the 55th edition of Berlinale, an event watched by an estimated 80 million television viewers and attended by 17000 accredited film professionals and covered by 3700official journalists, came to pass in a city described by Variety magazine's Ed Meza as "the San Francisco of Germany: a mecca for artists and musicians, writers and filmmakers, free thinkers and vagabonds, all of whom have found a haven here in much the same way the beatniks and the hippies found their space in Frisco in the 1950s and '60s."

Perhaps the highlight to African film business was February 15. It was on this day that Dorothee Wenner of the Berlinale’s International Forum for New Cinema—together with Prof Padhraic O Dochartaigh of the Deutsche Welle Academy—organised a day-long series of seminars dubbed ‘We Want You to Want Us’ to enable players in the African audiovisual media sector to present their case to the world and persuade it to put African film on their agenda. Among those who addressed the audience in a session titled Reclaiming Public Spaces, were Monique Mbeka-Phoba (Benin), Francis Nouaktchom (Cameroun), Ogova Ondego (Kenya), Fidelis Duker (Nigeria), Hamet Fall Diagne and Oumar N'Diaye (Senegal), and Zimbabwean Katedza. However questions were raised by some Africans in the audience over the suitability of Hau 2 theatre that was described as being remote as it was located away from Potsdamer Platz, the centre of Berlinale: what was the motive if not to marginalize Africa further? a participant posed.

Dismissing "so-called films focusing on Africa” as being made by foreigners, South African Jeremy Nathan of production company DV/8 gave participants food for thought as they grappled with the definition of what constitutes an 'African film’. Nigerian Dr Don Pedro Obaseki, who sat on the same panel with Nathan (Locating the market and spotting hot issues), conceded that quality was ‘still a major problem with some Nigerian films’ outside Africa’s most populous nation. He however said that this would improve with more films being churned out. On how South Africa came to be at the centre of Berlinale while she had allegedly been snubbed at Cannes in 2004, Eddie Mbalo of the National Film and Video Foundation of South Africa said his country had "not bribed any one. We can't be treated as special cases. We don't want to depend on handouts." Responding to the numerous questions spewing out about Africa focus, South Africa, and unsuitability of HAU 2 as the venue for We Want You to Want Us seminars, Wenner said Berlinale had an independent jury that could not be compromised.

Contrary to the feeling that holding the seminars away from Potsdamer Platz was tantamount to not embracing African cinema, Wenner said Hau 2 had recently won an award as being one of the best theatres in Germany and that holding a seminar on Africa there was indeed an honour and not denigration of Africa. "The Western world is under obligation to help develop and highlight filmmaking in Africa," Wenner said. However it was unclear how U-Carmen eKhayeltsha, that had been selected to be screened in the Forum section, had crawled its way up to the competition category and ended up winning the top award. The We Want You to Want Us: Smart African Ways of Marketing Cinema, was organised by Berlinale’s International Forum of New Cinema, HAU and Deutcsche Welle with funding from the German Federal Agency for Civic Education.

The three sessions focused on producing and directing films for new audiences, challenges facing African film festivals, and what it took to make U-Carmen eKhayeltsha. Panelists were drawn from production, funding, distribution, marketing, exhibition, and management sectors in Africa. The three sessions examined the challenges facing African audiovisual productions in terms of funding, technology, audience development and distribution. It was generally agreed that Africans have to invent strategies of film business that are uniquely African and not Western. Besides films, seminars, classes and practical learning from the various Berlinale sections, the 12 Africans who attended studies at DW TV Training Centre networked and socialised whenever they had any time and breath left. The lucky ones, among whom I was, explored and/or sampled the pleasures of neighbourhoods like Kreuzberg, Schoeneberg, and Prenzlauer Berg where, unlike the chilly Potsdamer Platz, restaurants, gay clubs, pubs, cafes and boutiques appeared to carry on around the clock.

At one time I moved from one place to another the whole night as public transport in on around the clock Friday-Sunday. It is now four days since the festival ended and I am still nursing the nostalgia as I file this report. I hope you will keep reading to discover how jury member Bail Ling of China could have ended up being described as the queen of baring it all in a chilly Berlin winter.

South Africa Grabs Top Berlin Film Festival Award