20 years of African cinematography in Cologne “Following past film series on topics such as the anti-nuclear

movement, Palestine, neo-fascism and images of Germany in cinema, this year, FilmInitiativ Köln is presenting a selection of filmsfrom Western Africa.Thisis as much a politicalchoice as one of cinematic aesthetics...

It is not only in politics that much of Europe is perceiving Africa as a blank spot on the map, in our movie theatres, too, we can barely make out an African voice... Africa itself, however, has an advanced, multifaceted filmproduction industry, which under infinitely difficult circumstances (funding, distribution, censorship) is bringing forth films of a broad topicalspectrum. Addressing issuessuch as the struggle againstcolonialism and neo-colonialism,criticism of outdated traditions, the urban-rural divide and class divisions, these films are extremelylively, full of suspense and of an extraordinary quality.They are diametrically opposed to much of what is shown at our cinemas in so far as they convey a simple immediate humanism that allows novel accessto subjects and people.“

 

The announcement dates back to June 1992.

FilmInitiativ Köln presented a first series of events including 21 feature and documentary films from Western Africa at the Filmpalette cinema in Cologne. A further series featuring films from other African regions followed within half a year.The programme’s title Out of Europe pointed out the ambition to present authentic images of Africa as opposed to the clichés widely portrayed in TV documentaries and feature movies like the romantic drama Out of Africa (which is set within the milieu of white colonial society whereby Africa is serving merely as a scenic backdrop). Out of Europe was to show films originating in Africa rather than commenting on it, films in which Africans themselves reflect on their history, their everyday existence and the societal problems of their countries. From day one,FilmInitiativ Köln invited guests from various African states,such as the filmmakersJean-Marie Teno from Cameroon and S. Pierre Yaméogo fromBurkina Faso. Mamady Keïta from Guinea, percussionist and protagonist of the music documentary Djembéfola, played a post-screening concert at the civic centre Alte Feuerwache. Sawadogo Saga of Burkina Faso’s national broadcasting corporation, who at the time completed an educationalcourse at the Deutsche Welle in Cologne, was invited to a discussion on filmmaking in Western Africa and pointed out that whoever wants to learn about the variety in African filmmaking ought to visit his home town Ouagadougou. It is there, he added, that the biggest and globally most important African film festival,FESPACO (Festival Panafricain de Cinéma et de la Télévision de Ouagadougou), had been taking place bienniallysince 1969. Collaborators of FilmInitiativ followed the recommendation and visited FESPACO in Burkina Faso in spring 1993.The opening ceremony alone was overwhelming. It didn’t take place in a cinema but in the city’s biggest football stadium, gathering 40,000 spectators amidst live music and laser shows.The enthusiasm of the local moviegoers in the vast open-air theatres of Ouagadougou, the spectrumof films on the programme and the encounters with filmmakers from all over the continent inspired FilmInitiativto produce a two-weeklong “sequel to the FESPACO“ in Cologne as early as December 1993. It showed 50 films under the title Out of Europe III. The programme featured the prize-winners of the original FESPACO and retrospectives on Ousmane Sembène and Safi Faye (Senegal), Gaston Kaboré (Burkina Faso) and Raoul Peck (Haiti) representing the diaspora. Guests included the filmmakers Fanta Régina Nacro from Burkina Faso, Ahmed Diop from Senegal and Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda from the Congo (at the time still called Zaire).

 

From that point on, collaborators and friends of FilmInitiativ visited the Ouagadougou festivalcontinually every two years, and in 1996 launched the Africa FilmFestival in Cologne, running in each subsequent year. As FilmInitiativ started to visit other festivals specialised in African filmmaking, some in Europe (Amsterdam, Milan,Leuven,Tarifa, Berlin and Frankfurt) and some in Africa (Tunis, Cairo and Durban), the Cologne festival soon grew to offer more than FESPACO’s prize-winning films. Both the quality and the extent of the Cologne festival programme increased and so did the interest of local visitors and visitors from other regions.The Filmpalette as well as the Kölner Filmhaus quickly proved too small, and later editions of the festival took place in largercinemassuch as the Broadway(which sadly no longer exists), the OFF Broadway and the cinema of the Filmclub 813. Since 2008 the festival hub has become fixed at the Filmforum of the Museum Ludwig, as it not only offers a large cinemawith 260 seats but also provides a spacious foyer to accommodate information stands for African communities and salesstandsfor literature,music, art and culinaryspecialities.

 

The 10th festival in 2008 saw 700 visitors attending the opening day alone, which is more than the first West African film series in 1992 counted over its running period. In 2010, the festival attracted 4,000 visitors, many of which had travelled fromothercities and neighbouring countries.The biennial Cologne festival Out of Europe has thus grown into the most comprehensive platformfor African filmmaking in Germany.

In the yearsfalling between,FilmInitiativfurther offers filmseries with a topical orcountry-specificfocus. An early example of thisis Aweek of remembrance: Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1996.The extensive nine-day programme stretched beyond screeningsto include readings and concerts, Nigerian theatre performances and an event at the University of Cologne with Wole Soyinka, Africa’s first Nobel Prize winner for literature. The series was organised in memory of Ken Saro-Wiwa, opposition politician writer and filmmaker,who had been executed by Nigeria’smilitaryregime in 1995 forcriticising the environmental destruction of Ogoniland in theNiger Delta byinternational petroleum companies such as Shell. The programme was conceived in close cooperation with Nigerian musicians from Cologne such as Adé Bantu and Don Abi. Cooperation with African communities continued. In 1996, many Cameroonians from Cologne acted as extras in Jean Marie Teno’s movie Clando about a refugee from Western Africa while the European part of the film was shot in various locationsin Cologne with the support ofFilmInitiativ. After the premiere of the feature Lumumba in 2002, Congolese living in Cologne and nearby conducted a discussion with the publicistLudo de Witte from Leuven, who wrote a bookrevealing the involvement of the Belgian government in the murder of Congo’s first post-independence prime minister. On the occasion of Ghana’s 50th Independence Day celebrations in November 2007, FilmInitiativ showed a series produced in collaboration with the Ghana Union Cologne. 

As uprisingsspread across North Africa in late 2010 and early 2011,FilmInitiativ decided to present the series Game Over and No More Fear with screenings of current features and documentaries from the affected regions. It thereby cooperated with the association “Helft Tunesien e.V.“, founded by Tunisians in exile.The January 2012 preview screening of the documentary Tahrir 2011,co-produced bythe German public broadcasting institution WDR, marked the beginning of collaboration with the German-Egyptian association “Deutsch- Ägyptische Gesellschaft Köln“.There were dozens of Egyptian migrants amongst the over 300 spectators attending the film’s

launch at the Filmforum.Their factualknowledge and guiding contributionsto the post-filmdiscussion presented the remaining public with a tangible impression of just how intensely Egyptians are engaged in forming the future of theircountry. For 20 years, the aim of FilmInitiativ in presenting new African films has remained consistent.The goal is to open our minds to different realities byshowing authentic images and hearing stories told by Africans themselves. Director Sarah Maldoror, who presented her 1972 classic Sambizanga on the Angolan War of Independence at Out of Europe VI (Cologne, 2000), put it thisway:“At the beginning of  this third millennium,cinema isthemost popular form of artistic expression worldwide...More than ever do we as Africans have to be present at this rendezvous of give and take... What countsis our perspective, is to see ourselves through our own images.” FilmInitiativ willcontinue to broaden the platform for such African perspectives – for perspectives that are aware of what is happening outside Europe and to which degree Europe is to be held responsible.The growing support of ourvisitorsis encouraging usto pursue this goal despite numerous obstacles.