Originally published in Sisters of the Screen: Women of Africa on Film Video and Television by Beti Ellerson. Africa World Press, Trenton, NJ, 2000. Interview by Beti Ellerson and Press Conference, at the 15th FESPACO, February 1997, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Translated from French.
You came on the cinema scene in 1992 and have made several films since then. Could you talk about your evolution into cinema?
I am not really a filmmaker, in conventional terms I mean. I began several years ago. I am an international lawyer. I was sent on a mission to my country. I was very happy to get a chance to see my grandmother. She died when I was there, and I attended the funeral. I observed the treatment of the dead, their relationship with the cosmos and the world, and their basic values.
It occurred to me that the West has a particularly thorough understanding of Asia, of Asian philosophy, but I found it curious that there is not this understanding about Africa. I thought about how necessary it is that we express ourselves. Since I work in an international milieu, I know that power comes from those who say things. There is a widespread attitude that if you do not express yourself, if you have nothing to say, then you do not exist. The problem is that, culturally speaking, Africa does not say things. We think that what is important is not told, or is expressed discreetly, or is told only to one another, by word-of-mouth. Our attitude is that a culture that exposes itself disintegrates. I think that in some ways it is true, the idea of total diffusion of something—when you diffuse everything—you lose something of your essence.
I think the change in the Western world is because the West produces and diffuses, because once you diffuse things they are modified, they change. These notions and values are told to someone else, that person receives them, then modifies and changes them, and so on, and the values themselves evolve. Whereas in African society, the values that you are told once, you keep and apply all of your life. The societies are very fixed, and they are much more solid. Though this is not only in African societies, there are many closed societies in the world. The Japanese society, for example, at the same time fascinating, is also apparently very diffused. It is a society whose economy is known everywhere, but no one knows a fourteenth-century Japanese poet. It is somewhat like the African societies, but the only difference is that the Japanese culture went through a cultural mutation and had other things in exchange. It could diffuse its economic conscience, its economic philosophy. We have not had this. I think that we are a bit lost in our international discourse. We no longer exist. Now we must say something.
I started with culture. I made a film called Le gardien des forces, on so-called magic, which is not magic at all, rather a belief that we practice in my village. It was a film about my neighbor, who is a fetishist, and his practices. I was not very experienced in film at the time, so I simply filmed this remarkable practice that had been in existence since I was born. The film was presented at the Margaret Mead Society in the United States. I was invited to the Society—where the people were very formal—and was asked to explain the events, since they did not know about this practice. In the film, people killed with their voices, with words. However, the people at the Society could not believe it.
Why didn't they believe what they were seeing in the film?
It is cultural. You cannot comprehend Africa with a Western cultural perceptive. Because your investigation into things speaks of your understanding and inner explorations. We do not have this same internal inquiry. That is what culture is! All cultures have equal worth, but they are different. If you were to ask someone to show you how to kill other than with a gun, you would be told that there are other ways, which are not necessarily negative, but perhaps are more impressive.
When the film was screened, I thought, what is curious is that when we see something, we do not believe it merely because we have seen it. We are not like St. Thomas in the Bible, "I believe what I see"; we believe what we understand. In addition, what we do not comprehend by intelligence is not grasped. So from then on, I decided to do socio-political films, and I have always been interested in women's discourse, because I think it is an alternative discourse. I have always treated my themes from the perspective of women.
Your latest film, Les oubliées is being shown here at FESPACO and women are your point of departure. Could you talk about the film and why you chose this theme?
Initially the idea was to talk about war, to make a plea for peace. In analyzing situations of extreme war, I had a choice because there are many extreme situations throughout the world. I chose one of the longest wars of the century, the war in Angola. It has lasted thirty years, for the last thirty years: the people have been fighting. The purpose was to have an alternative discourse, one that was not simply based on the reasons for war—which always seem to be legitimate; nor one that is filled with dates or simple facts.
I tried rather to treat the problem of war from the women's perspective. Their perspective does not simply analyze things; they live them. That is what I proposed as my initial premise, and it was filmed along that line. In fact, the women that I encountered told me things about the history of the country that had nothing at all to do with what we know of the history of their country.
Earlier you talked about wanting to show an alternative discourse. Do you think that African cinema in general provides this? What does the notion of an African cinema represent for you?
It is an endeavor to restore its values within a thought system that exists, but can no longer survive here at the end of the twentieth century unless it is mediatized. This is necessary. I do not have this naive vision that all cultures must be expressed, though I think it is true. Beyond that, we share the same world and we have alternative values, and that is important. It is interesting to know how others perceive the world, what they consider most essential, because this is how we exchange. The world is evolving in such a way that we will interchange with each other no matter what. Everything is interconnected, and if we express our culture, the logic of the system is such that it will be shared elsewhere as well.
What do you envision when one says "the image of the African woman in cinema"? What does that represent for you?
The African woman is woman, quite simply. I am trying to reflect on the question because I have never filmed any other women. I think it is a discourse on values, of other values than those that have been advanced. It is the essential testimony of fifty-two percent of humanity, or fifty-two percent of the people that I address.
As a maker of the image, do you feel that you have a role to show a certain representation of the African woman?
The image has never had as much importance on a moral level, in educating people, as it does today. Before, it was only accessible to a minority of people, whereas now it is available to everyone, and it has become the cultural norm. I think this applies to everyone, to have a moral duty regarding what we do. I present the values that I consider positive. Absolutely, I think the image must be treated seriously.
In film criticism discourse there is much discussion and debate about aesthetics. Do you think that a feminine aesthetic exists?
If aesthetic means a sensibility, emotional sentiments, then yes, I think so.
And how is this presented?
By having a certain understanding, perception, and awareness of practices beyond the accepted standards, the familiar views and references. I do not know if I would say that they are necessarily feminine, because there are men who share this perspective. I think that at this moment in the evolution of humanity, certain human beings, notably women, sense those things that are important and express them, and these things are different from what has been previously communicated. There is a sensibility that is expressed that is different, and that is how things change. I do not know if one can say that it is exclusively feminine.
Where have your films been shown? Could you talk about the exhibition and distribution of your films?
I distribute some of my films in the United States. I do not know how it is done in this country of yours! There is an audience; there is a general interest in Africa among black Americans. However, I do not know who renders the image of Africa in the United States. Because there is very little chance that the films made by Africans are bought by American distributors. I do not understand how a [black American] community that searches, politically, for its roots in Africa and draws its inspiration from Africa, actually nourishes itself culturally. I do not understand who actually makes these images of Africa!
Do you...
It is a question that I am posing to you!
We will talk afterwards [laughter].
Afterwards! [laughter].
Do you think that the distribution of African films is very different in Europe and in Africa than in the United States?
No. You are absolutely right. However, not for the same reasons. The BBC has always done the best documentaries in the world. An Englishman goes to Thailand and states, "Well this is how the Thai live." He has no problem examining this affirmation within himself, nor does he question it. He never presents his remarks with hesitation. He simply states "I come from England and I think that these people live this way." That is the view that becomes exclusive, the center, Europe.
The West gives you an image of the world based on a European cultural framework. This is done for economic reasons as well. In a television station, the program director will assign the production of a documentary to a friend, because there is unemployment, or a friend is looking for work, etc. On the other hand, it may be assigned for political reasons: because certain views may be seen as subversive, these opinions are not readily acceptable and thus are kept away from the public.
The image of Africa in Europe has been in existence for three hundred years, and there is not a readiness for change. The attitude is: even if Africa does evolve, it must do so slowly. In addition, while Africans have been voicing their own thoughts, it is viewed that Europe has contributed to these thoughts. What interests Europe is what it has taught us about Africa. When other perspectives are presented, they are not accepted.
I remember, during preparation for a French television program on African women, I was invited to come because my film was included. I was told that the women in my film were not really African women because they were modern. I made the film, Femmes aux yeux ouverts, here in Burkina Faso, about women, all illiterate, who fought against excision. They were considered too modern, because the ecriture was modern. They did not think that these women, or people anywhere in the world who submit to exploitation, are conscious of their exploitation. The people who are exploited are not stupid. It was a perspective that was very difficult for them to grasp.
So how would you compare this to attitudes of black people in the United States?
Perhaps you have the same reasons in the United States, but I think that, culturally speaking, it should not exist there. There is not a black community in Europe important enough to create a market for African films, whereas there is a black community in the United States. And that has always amazed me. I do not want black Americans to have a fantasy view of Africa. There is a real culture, a philosophy, a world-view. Many a thesis or dissertation may be made on this. However, because it has not been written about as much, it is not known. It is beyond the popular images of customs, rituals, gestures, and movements. It has nothing to do with these things, it is about the way of thinking, about the individual in the universe, and it is as serious as Plato or Aristotle.
And the image of Africa in Africa? You have talked about the image of Africa in the United States and in Europe. What are your thoughts about African images of Africa?
That is the question! However, everyone here is connected to her or his satellite dish, that is the problem. I am not as concerned in Africa, because culture is very real in Africa. An African may overtly adapt to Western culture, but, culturally speaking, she or he will not change. You may be animist and go to your fetishist in the morning, and afterwards go to church. There is not the substitution of one mode of thinking for another. That is the intellectual politics of the West, where modernity means that if you become Baptist you are no longer what you once were. You become what you have decided to be, you are reborn.
Whereas Africans accumulate, being all at one time. Because what is important is not what one is, but what one can get as knowledge. What is also important to us are the thoughts of others; it is knowledge, above all. There is an apparent cultural detachment, but I am not sure that it is profound. An African knows she or he is African, and may not want to change, and perhaps cannot change.
Could you talk a bit about the association of African women in the cinema that was established at FESPACO in 1991?
Yes, there was a movement that started, but African cinema itself is too young and has too little means. You know, in order to organize as a group there must be something in common to uphold. In order to have an organizing spirit, there must be a culture that develops this, which we do not have. There must be a means to support ourselves, and we have very little means to do so. When we do come together, it is from a demand to do a documentary made by women. Because we as filmmakers are not the ones who initiate projects; it is the television network or distributor. In addition, the distance inter-continentally makes it difficult, we are too far from each other. We do not have the means to come together. We are not always interconnected, and perhaps we do not have a sufficiently elevated political consciousness to do so.
But you do come together when you are at FESPACO?
Yes, but FESPACO takes place only every other year.
And during the interval?
We meet at other festivals. Each woman knows where she wants to go and what she wants to say and she does it.
What format do you generally shoot in, film or video?
I like Betacam. Everyone tells me that I should work in film. Betacam, it works, its simple for me. I am not a great cook, so I try to do simple things with it. I like the digital Beta.
Lucy Gebre-Egziabher, at the time, an Ethiopian film student from Howard University, was invited to participate in this interview. She had the following questions for Anne-Laure Folly.
Ousmane Sembene said that it is easier to show his films in Paris than in Senegal. My question, thus, is: For whom does the African filmmaker make films? If we cannot show our films in Africa, in our own countries, for whom do we make films?
I make films for me first, to materialize my thoughts, to make sure they are clear and communicable. And then, to make sense out of what surrounds me. My problem is to possess this sense, but I cannot impose my vision of the world on someone. I make a product and if it is good I will put it on the market. The system is such that, eventually, what happens will happen. We have already discussed political and economic reasons, but my problem as a filmmaker is to do what I must do as best as possible.
What can you say to younger and emerging filmmakers? There are some of us Africans who live outside of Africa and are studying film.
Good for you!
Really! Why do you feel this way?
I think it is good because cinema is a tool that is not inherent to African culture. We must be mediums. When we speak of culture to the rest of the world we must be capable ourselves of knowing both sides, we must travel beyond our boundaries. That is the reason why a great many African filmmakers have not crossed the oceans, because those who utilize cinema, though it is good, can only use it in their own communities, because they have only regional or continental references.
It is normal to go elsewhere and be a medium for your own culture, there is no problem. You have the tools, you have the culture, you mix it together, and you do your own cooking.
I have lived in the United States for seventeen years and I realized that I am a bit detached from my culture because I am not there.
You are not detached from your culture, you are part of an evolving world. We are in a world that is globally interconnected and you are a product of the end of the twentieth century. You are not out of context. You are a product of the world. Unfortunately, it is sad to say, but it will be the others who will find difficulty in keeping in touch in this world, whether in Ethiopia or in the middle of Kansas.
What can you say to those who are beginning in the world of African cinema?
"Just do it" [stated in English]. You know I did not study film, I did not consciously come to it. I came by chance, because one day I had an idea. I would never have thought that I would be doing films, never in my life! Besides, I was not convinced at first that it was even useful. Now I know it is worthwhile and effective. And then, it is also simple, but necessary. There is no other means that is as efficient. There will be no other means to unify the world. It will not be CNN that will do the job.
Excerpts from the Press Conference of Les Oubliées, FESPACO 1997. Questions are from various panel members and audience members.
A few years ago you were here with the documentary film, Femmes aux yeux ouverts, you are back with another film, Les oubliées which deals with the consequences of the civil war on women and children in Angola. Why did you take this direction?
We must all try to touch the reality of the situation. My interest is reality, even in fiction.
The film, Femmes aux yeux ouverts touched on the problems of the emancipation of women, Les oubliées focuses also on the problems of women and of children...
It is not only about women, it is a plea for peace, and I treated war not through the ordinary perspective that we have about the facts and events, the battles and territorial gains, but rather from a perspective that is specific. Women have a different perspective about this history, especially of a war that has lasted more than thirty years. They experienced the war based on personal suffering, having lost people they know, and sensing the impossibility of being able to provide a future. They live this history from another point of reference and I found this interesting.
I decided to not approach this plea for peace from an intellectual level, because we are all for peace. I wanted to hear it from people who spoke from the guts about their fears. We respond more radically for peace, but within the reflection, "really this violence has to stop." The film comes more so from the guts, reason should not be the basis for bringing up the problems of the world, because reason is not sufficient to change things.
There are many wars going on in Africa, why did you choose the war in Angola as the subject of your most recent film?
It is an exemplary war, not only for Africa but also for the world. It is nearly the longest war of the century; it has lasted for the last thirty years. There is an entire generation, which only knows extreme violence. There are people who live in a world where morals do not exist, where in the absence of morals the only rule is: To survive you must kill.
I also find it interesting because it was a war that took all forms. Initially it was a war to end colonization and then an East-West conflict involving Cuba and South Africa, and afterwards a civil war. Perhaps there were several motives for the war but, nonetheless, it continued to be one group fighting against another, which leads one to believe that the motive had only one interest at stake, which was war itself.
It is certainly one of the richest countries in Africa. There have been colossal stakes, to the extent that the war has allowed the maintenance of a considerably profitable economy of war.
It is also a way of exposing war. You also go beyond the francophone sphere to enter the lusophone in posing the problematic of Angola. Perhaps the next film could be the equally long war in Eritrea?
I was very happy when I came to FESPACO and saw the poster with the little black boy and white boy, it was the first actual expression that we have had here of a very multi-racial continent. The strength of Africa has always been its multi-raciality, whether it appears so or not, whereas other continents have not had this. I think that it is interesting to present a country that is very different from our region in West Africa....
You have always used women as the vehicle to express yourself, to show what you are thinking. Is that your choice? Why?
I think that they bring another discourse, I am not saying that women view the world differently, but they do not have the same social function in society. The women in the countries where there is war are all victims. They participate in the war to assist in the survival of their children, sons, and husbands, but that is all, and then they lose them. Yet, they do not actually participate. In the film, there was a woman who said, "One day I was in the war zone and I saw the Cubans coming." This was an amazing image of a woman who did not know what was going on. She has been wandering around the country for the past ten years. I think these perspectives bring about another appreciation of the world, of values, and I am always for another discourse.
At the end of the film, the women made a call to the international community. Have you gotten responses?
I was fascinated when the woman took the microphone and began to speak, saying, "Look how we live, we live like dogs. Go tell the others." Because when you live in those camps it is really like being at the other end of the world. You must take a plane to get there, you must have authorization, no one goes there. What is happening is that at the moment they are in the process of making a peace treaty. So I hope that this war will end—and there are others—I hope with all my heart that it will end.
To return to the discussion about international responsibility, you are right to say that in Angola there are economic stakes for "the international powers." I will remind you that there was a summit in Brussels where financiers decided to invest a million dollars to remobilize this ravaged Angola, and at the same time mines which are manufactured by those same foreign countries continue to kill. What message would you like to show regarding this problem?
I am not sending a message, but I want to say that no one has obliged me to make a film, I chose this subject. What made me change to this theme was that, before, I had an intellectual relationship with all that was war, and now I have the impression that because of globalization we are coming to one single way of thinking and there will no longer be an ideology. There will no longer be a reason to oppose one another. I think there is good reason to continue to revolt, those reasons are simply for human values. What is actually positioning itself is a sort of rigid liberalism with no thought about the economic consequences, which is very dangerous. In fact, with this liberalism there will be no need for individuals. There can be an economy and business without anyone now. I think that it is interesting that people are now fighting for their values, but we are at a point in history where we will fight simply for the right to exist.
Do you think that Africa can contribute, if nothing else, to bringing positive values in the world?
You know, no one actually understands African thought; even Hegel asked if Africans actually think. In my society, as here and elsewhere in Africa, when you are born, you are given life. Intellectually, that means that when you are given something, the person who gave it to you exists, and possesses the thing. Thus, to live is to give something, and to be alive for an African is to give something; whereas, in the West, principles and philosophies are based on the economy and money. Moreover, money, in principle, is not given away: by definition when one has it one keeps it. It is a vision that is totally opposed to what we have vis-à-vis the Western world. There are many things that differentiate us, and to diffuse these things permits others to have other conceptual tools.
At this point, Sarah Maldoror speaks from the audience:
Sarah Maldoror: The first point that I want to make to Anne-Laure Folly is that your film is outstanding, it is fantastic. Because you are a woman, you have the respect for life, because you have courage. You could have been blown up a hundred times in those mines, but you were not, thank God. I think that you had courage to do this film. And it is very well done, and it gives one something to think about. And that these women who fight and suffer, who are hungry, could actually do a theatrical play, I find extraordinary. I regret that there are not more women who can be here to participate in this peace effort. Because if we women do not do it, it will not be the other African filmmakers, who, alas, are not at this conference. There are very few people here, which I find regrettable.
However, what I am not in agreement with is your impression of this FESPACO poster. This poster if terrible. If you look closely, there is a black boy and white boy—I agree that there are no borders, that Africa is multi-racial—but, if you look closely at this poster, you have a little white boy who looks very well fed who puts his hand on the shoulder of a little skinny black boy. That is the symbol of FESPACO, the only thing that counts now is not the African filmmakers, it is the others who count. Of course, we need others, but this poster is horrible.
Anne-Laure Folly: I would like first to thank Sarah, she inspired me to do this film. She made a film called Sambizanga, which in my opinion is one of the masterpieces of African cinema. When I saw it, I had a desire to make a film thirty years later, about Angola. She cleared the way by showing the Angola liberation war from a woman’s perspective. My film is not groundbreaking; she has already done that.
Coming back to the poster, I accept that de Klerk received the Nobel Peace Prize and I think that it is symbolic. And this poster, I also see as symbolic. It is true that the little white boy is a little plump, but I did not read it that way. I read it otherwise, because six years ago we would never have seen it, and I think it gives a history of the continent.
Panel Member: Your film was intended to focus on children and women but I think that you did not give the voice to the children. The women were able to express themselves, but I did not feel the presence of the children.
Anne-Laure Folly: I did not interview the children simply because there was a language problem. I shot in a lusophone country. It was difficult for me, but it was not just that, I wanted a discourse on the situation. I wanted it to be somewhat conceptualized, thus I chose people who could conceptualize the problem. Secondly, the level of chaos in this country means that there is no longer an educational system. If you find a fifteen-year-old in front of you, he does not know what a pen is. In the schools, a child at one level teaches the child at the level below.
What concerns me about this country is that this whole class of young people is not in a suitable position for development. They are not in a position to provide this country with the energy to develop and, thus, I had very few interlocutors, among which there were no children at all. And I am not sure, if I had asked them questions, that they would have been able to answer them within the problematic that I posed.
Panel Member: What were some of the obstacles that you had when doing the film in Angola?
Anne-Laure Folly: First, there were psychological obstacles. I have never made a film where everyday I felt that I wanted to stop, that everyday I wanted to leave, simply because the ugliness of this country is unimaginable. This is not even depicted in the film. Half of the population lives in filth. We cannot imagine this when we come from here [Ouagadougou]: Here it is an Eldorado. And I couldn't adapt to being there. In addition—and I do not want to go into all the details—since everything is mined, if you go in to film you must have an airplane. You perhaps can obtain one through an international organization, which requires a great deal of permits. What happened to me one day, we were about to start filming and I was told repeatedly that there was going to be a delay. Of course, there was no airplane, nor the hope of getting one soon, perhaps for three weeks, and we were in a remote area. That was the first time during a production that I had to call for an airplane to take a crew back home. Imagine. For a producer, it was a disaster.
Sarah Maldoror: I want to respond to the woman who asked the question about children. It is an important question. [Anne-Laure Folly] did not interview children, but you, here in Burkina Faso, how many children come to the theaters? Why don't the filmmakers go to the schools, to the universities, to show them other films? No, she did not interview them, but what have you done? What do you do for children here, where the children should be? They are not here!
Panel Member: As you certainly have seen, there has been a great deal done for children throughout the city. However, I think that they should not necessarily be at this debate. I still had the right to pose the question regarding the film.
Sarah Maldoror: You have every right, we are in a free country. But, I also I have the right to answer. I am asking why you do not ask us filmmakers to present our films in your schools, in your high schools, in your universities, to give them other things to see? You observed that children were not interviewed in Anne-Laure's film, I simply noted that they are not around, it is in the theaters that I would have wanted to see them, and university students here at this conference participating in these discussions.
Audience Member: I just want to say that when I went to see the film Macadam Tribu there were many children present. I also want to talk about the poster. I see it as sending a message. I see the children converging toward something, and that is enough for me; I do not need to go into the smallest detail to know why about this or that. I think that one must aim at what is essential, go forward towards that which is important.
Panel Member: To revisit the discussion regarding the mines, there was a bomb disposal expert at the end of the film who said that mines will continue to kill up until 2050....
Anne-Laure Folly: It happens in Angola, in Cambodia, and elsewhere. He explains very well that all these mines are constructed by the West. He has a sense of humor when saying, "I think that those who construct the mines must utilize them." There is an absurd logic, which is very interesting. There is a lesson that I learned from making this film. I could have rallied against the war. However, I also thought that one must die for her or his ideas, and have the courage to do it. From what I saw there are several ways of dying. For me the only thing that is important is to no longer engage in warfare. I am of a generation that has not yet seen war and I hope never to experience it. I am ready to fight to find other means to defend ideas, but not by violent means. I am capable of losing on the side of values in order to be in a world where there is no violence. Before this film, I did not feel this way.
