Non-Aligned Film Archives 06: You Can’t Live with Other People’s Memories (Abdoul War)

Event has passed ICA,

This programme is based on Notes pour une série télévisuelle de fiction sur l’histoire de l’Afrique noire (Notes for a fictional television series on the history of Black Africa), an unrealised project by poet and playwright Abdoul War and filmmaker Med Hondo. In the late 1980s, War and Hondo began working on a script for a 28-episode pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial history of Africa inspired by the writing of Burkinabe historian and politician Joseph Ki Zerbo. The project, which they would never complete, was conceived as an “action of public salvation” which is “imperative for all those who want to help Africa and who are convinced that a people, a peoples, cannot really face their future without having a vision of their own past. You can’t live with other people’s memories. History is the collective memory of peoples.” (Abdoul War)

The films in this screening each allude to different episodes in War and Hondo’s planned series: Segu jango evokes the Bambara kingdom of Ségou; Reou Takh the slave trade; Sarraounia the historical figures of resistance to the colonists; Monangambé the struggle for independence in Angola.” (Annabelle Aventurin and Léa Morin)

The screening will be presented by Annabelle Aventurin and Léa Morin.

In the presence of Abdoul War and Junior Johnson Traoré.

Samba le Grand (Samba the Great)

Mustapha Alassane I 1977 I Niger I 14’ I 35mm (digital transfer) I French spoken, English subtitles

The first African animation entirely in colour, Samba le Grand depicts the adventures of a legendary hero who, dazzled by her beauty, asks a princess for her hand in marriage. The princess sets him several challenges which he successfully performs, but she continues to request further proof of his valour. It is only in death that the two young people are finally united.

Réou Takh

Réou Takh is the name given to Dakar by Senegalese from the countryside. A black American who wants to rediscover his roots travels to Senegal. One of the continent’s first films to depict the slave trade in Gorée, Réou Takh was banned in Senegal on its release.

Trailer for Sarraounia

Med Hondo | 1986 | Burkina Faso, France | 3’ | 35mm | Dioula and French spoken

At the end of the 19th century, a troop of French officers and Sudanese mercenaries led by Voulet and Chanoine attempted to conquer Niger. Only Sarraounia, the legendary queen of the Aznas people of Niger, opposes the colonists.

Monangambé

Monangambé deals with the torture of an Angolan resistance sympathiser by the Portuguese army.