iREP 2017 Archiving Africa|Our Memories are Open

iREP 2017 Archiving Africa|Our Memories are Open

What is our artistic response to the stagnation of development in our nation? We cannot continue to abdicate the space for the public intellectual to silly online bloggers and compromised newspaper columnists…The world is going through a whirlwind of complex issues on many fronts that challenge our understanding of the world, of ourselves and how we sustain our pursuit of peace and prosperity.

We are the RESPONSE!

FEMI ODUGBEMI, iREP Executive Director

The iREP 2017 International Documentary Film Festival organised by Foundation for the Promotion of Documentary Film in Africa has come and gone. Yet, beautiful moments were experienced in the exciting 4-day celebration of African documentation in films. This annual film festival in the last 7 years have screened over 250 films from across the world getting partnership and support from some of their dependable and genuine partners such as Goethe Institut, AWDFF of the University of Missouri in St. Louis, Missouri and New York University’s African Studies department, AG.DOK, DOK-fest, Ford Foundation and other Nigerian media partners, demonstrated and established more, the Nigerian spirit of not giving up despite the economy ‘noise’ that has made ideas around the global space shelved off or postponed. The power of resilience took over and launched the 7^th edition of the festival showcasing the power of making films with the aid of archives and documented materials that people need to see from colonial era to post colonialism and the modern era of our time, all inside the monumental old colonial prison now reformed and called Freedom Park.   

  From March 15 to 18 2017, Freedom Park Lagos, venue of the festival was agog with filmmakers and media stakeholders and consultants, while film enthusiasts and invited guests had a lot to commune, share and network among themselves. From the opening speeches of the organizers and directors of the festival led by highly cerebral filmmaker, Femi Odugbemi and veteran journalist of note Jahman Anikulapo, everything is possible with diligence, confidence and resilience. The power of Africa in self-conversation which has been the drive for iREP and the committee continues to evolve all around the four day film fiesta. Sponsorship may have been hard to get by the organizers, yet it didn’t take the shine known with iREP away. At iREP 2017, Africa was duly archived.

We were still reminded about the emerging realities on the African continent by Femi Odugbemi. Presently, there are shift in the information order and archiving our lives, history and literature. The conversation remains how do we archive our dialogues, conversations, memories, events, cinema to shape our future without going to borrow elsewhere? There should be a new sense of involvement and quality participation on everyone’s part. Our archives have ways of contributing to our human and economic development.

Screening

The selected films had a good background account of the theme iREP wanted. Free Fela and Mali Blues made the opener at the cocktail party to usher in iREP. Though Free Fela didn’t berth into the hearts of the audience, simply due to lack of commitment to true Fela cause. A film on Fela is supposed to be a breathtaking one; Free Fela only had a free fall off quality shelf. Celebrated guest of the festival, highly revered archivist, researcher, journalist and filmmaker, French-Egyptian born Jihan El-Tahri gave Africa what we need to know from our past to present. Her three films selected; Cuba- An African Oddyssey, Egypt and the Modern Day Pharaohs and Behind the Rainbow all shot on long features put enthusiasts and participants on the edge. House of Nwapa, The Invaluable Waste, Robert Mugabe…What Happened, Mama Colonel, Brother Time all had appreciable and commendable applause from the audience and guests.

 

The Academy and Workshop

Beyond the glamour of filming, one basic tool is reinventing creatively. Passion evolves rapidly to success when education and hardwork compliments talents. And it is undeniable that there are emerging voices in Africa working and shining through the aid of technology to tell and spread their stories. iREP and academy partnership programs have come at the right time for emerging and ambitious filmmakers. In a world of rapidly snap-chat moment, consistency plays a big role in human development. Career in motion development is not an exception as well and iREP has been at the fore-front of pushing young filmmakers to move forward. In partnership with established film companies, documentary network support, iREP has given life and technical support that are important for emerging and established filmmakers to survive in the game.

Producers’ Roundtable

The annual iREP/ITPAN producers’ roundtable again lived up to its billings. The topic for the roundtable was Access to Archives – Imperatives of co –operations and collaborations. The topic was actually moderated by Yinka Oduniyi, president of ITPAN while speakers such as Jihan El Tahri, Barbel Mauch, Markus Schmidt and Mudi Yahaya. A very important topic worthy of discussion. Where are our archives of African events, stories and issues? Policy makers have found it difficult to break it. Documentations about Africa are in possession of western media. Africans have found it difficult to retrieve what belongs to them. But from the round table, it was agreed that African producers, archivists and recordists must appreciate the influence of technology for archiving and storing their materials for the records. Modern times, the power of icloud and other form of documentations through tech-acquisition need to be explored. Africa must learn to use they have copied from the west in terms of documentation appropriately.

Art Stampede with CORA

One of the relevant missions in iREP is bringing memories as a form of challenge to contemporary life. Committee for Relevant Art [CORA] one of iREP’s collaborators brought to our minds an epic masterpiece that happened 40 years ago in Lagos. FESTAC ’77 was indeed a masterpiece! Regarded as one of the best cultural events of its time. For one month in January and February 1977, 150,000 participants from 56 African countries and the black Diaspora converged in Nigeria and performed in a Black Festival of Arts and Culture. A Nigerian self-taught photographer and archivist, Tam Fiofori had a splendid time telling FESTAC ’77 story from his lenses as an unaccredited freelance photographer. His collection of FESTAC ’77 report was entitled FESTAC@40: My FESTAC Archives – Tam Fiofori. Tam took the participant through a cozy ride regaling them about the one of Africa’s most colourful festivals of all time. ”My main mission as a documentary photographer and filmmaker, particularly with regards to my country Nigeria, is to ensure that I always document for history and posterity once in a life and time events and moments. FESTAC ’77 was one such rare and magnificent occasion.                                                          Historian and veteran journalist, Ed Keazor and Muni King both relished the audience and participants at iREP with events around us entitled Headline History: Nigeria 1861 – 1991. This is an incredible collection of events on prints that is well curated by both headliners. The exhibition highlighted the pivotal role of print media as an invaluable record of Nigerian history. It features headlines, articles and images, telling the story of 120 years of Nigerian history.

Muni King is a journalist and writer with a career spanning 40 years from her tenure as one of the foundation journalists of the Punch newspaper. Ed Keazor is an historian and archivist who have for over 30 years amassed an archive of images and press data on Nigerian history.

Article/Ireho Aito

Niyi Coker on Africa and Cinema| Time upon Time, Africa Stand Up and be Counted.

     Niyi Coker on Africa and Cinema| Time upon Time, Africa Stand Up and be Counted.

“The West got free labour, off the back of Africa, yet the West hasn’t paid anything for it. Now some African and Caribbean countries are calling for repatriation for the fact that we gave you 400 years of free labour. When the era of enslavement ended, the west continues to get free natural resources. The natural resources we have again such as the oil, gold, diamond. We are talking about blood diamonds in Sierra-Leone; we are talking about oil in Nigeria.”

                                              

 Nigeria born scholar, Niyi Coker, an E.Desmond Lee Endowed Professor in African/African American Studies, Theatre, Dance and Media Studies is so passionate about African stories in films and being packaged by Africans. The festival director of E.Desmond Lee Africa World Documentary Film Festival believes, through the power of documentary films, many African problems and the continent negative issues on economy, finance, technology, literature, primary health care and human management can be solved. Niyi Coker has facilitated and participated in so many documentary film festivals with special commitment to Africa’s place in the scheme of things.

 

Niyi Coker’s film “Pennies for the Boatman” took center stage at the Madrid International Film Festival by beating out the competition and taking home the prize for best film script.

“Pennies for the Boatman” was set and shot in St. Louis. The dramatic film takes place in north St. Louis during the summer of 1958. It’s about the stormy relationship between two sisters. The movie is an adaptation of St. Louis playwright Mario Farwell’s “The Seamstress of St. Francis Street.”

The film was originally up for four awards at the Madrid festival: best film of the festival, best director, best feature film and best film script.

On the heels of his festival win, Coker learned that his film has secured a distribution deal in Europe. A1 Pictures in England has picked up “Pennies for the Boatman” for European theater releases and eventually worldwide DVD distribution.

Coker’s directing credits include “Black Studies USA” and “The Black 14,” as well as more than 50 major stage productions.

In a chat with Africa Walking Magazine, the cerebral scholar believes, the art of documentary filmmaking, promotes human knowledge, life and culture and commends the role and intervention of iREP film festival in Nigeria that is now in its 7^th season.

A festival that has within a short period, being able to remove the notion, that African cinema and films don’t have a place in history. The festival has covered the majority of issues affecting Africa through documentary films such as corruption, drug addiction, poverty, politics, environmental issues and archives. Also there have being film expositions on womanism, child labour and abuse, human rights, dance and spirituality, music and hip-hop, African religions and more.

What would you make of iREP film festival in Nigeria?

I think what iREP has done, is actually opening up an area that has not been focus on at all in documentary film making. Africa and Africans don’t actually tell their stories; rather, other people have defined us by telling our stories. Over 20 years or more now, we have had a big boom of Nollywood film industry and of course the whole Nollywood, we have had feature stories but not really documentary historical analyses. Rather, Nollywood has come more of entertainment. Documentaries are edutainment, they educate you while entertaining you and we are defining ourselves through documentaries and telling our own historical truths, our own cosmological views, which we are, since early days, what has happened to us, how did we come to this impasse and this road we found ourselves on this journey as Africans. I think that is the beauty of documentaries films, as they open up stories and many more to be told that have never been told until we get onto the road of that self-definition and actualisation. The irony is only at that point, the next generation will have a story of who they are and where they are coming from. Otherwise, we would be defining ourselves to other peoples’ definitions of who we are.

Changing the mindset of the next generation against borrowed culture, how do we start?

There is always the youth and the youth never ends. If you say the youth, presently are on borrowed culture, fine, but you still have a lot people coming up. iREP and documentary films are laying the ground for those people and maybe those people will look at those people we call the youth today, as a generation that got lost. They will have a definition of themselves at that time when that time comes, but the truth is somebody must start laying the ground work.

I use to make a joke, that when I was in elementary school and high school in the 70s, we were always told we are the leaders of the next generation and the irony about it is, the same people who told me we were the leaders of the next generation are still in power in this country today. They never made rooms for the next generation. So when you say this present generation is lost, I believe things will turn around quickly, especially with the inclusion and the fusion of digital media in this country.

That is one step you are going to get documentary at your fingertips. Education at your fingertips. You are going to be able to create your own story very quickly which is a big advancement. I remember in this country, a time when telephones were pretty hard to come by, only certain affluent people like some of my classmates, I mean, I knew those of them who had phones and we would call one another from home staying right up, calling home to home, then it was for the privileged. Later, they introduced the corner-phones, phone-booths like we used to see in London and those phone booths sometimes, they work and sometimes, they don’t. It got to a point, when the whole world went digital and Nigeria was still on analogue phone, it was very difficult.

I remember when I went to the States for my studies, to call Nigeria was always tough and phone was still a big deal, when everywhere in the west, phone was already happening. Guess what happened all of a sudden? By the 90s, everybody had a cell phone, we too had cell phones, now communication is everywhere and everybody is connected.

What do we have to give to the west?

The West always needs Africa to survive. The west did not become the west overnight. The west was built on the back of Africa. The advancement in the west was built on the transatlantic slave trade. It was the people of Africa who went outside to make the west what it is today. Let me ask you a question, you started a business right now and for 400 to 500 years, you got free labour for your company, for your farms, and you didn’t have to pay them salary for anything for 500 years, wouldn’t you be the richest man in the world? If you had to have labour on your industry and you don’t pay a penny for it, you will be the richest person in the world. The West got free labour, off the back of Africa, yet the West hasn’t paid anything for it. Now some African and Caribbean countries are calling for repatriation for the fact that we gave you 400 years of free labour. When the era of enslavement ended, the west continues to get free natural resources. The natural resources we have again such as the oil, gold, diamond. We are talking about blood diamonds in Sierra-Leone; we are talking about oil in Nigeria.

Look at cell phones and laptops, the minerals resources that produce these are from Africa, the land of the Congo to be precise. It is high time Africa and Africans renegotiated what we are giving. We can’t continue to live in this strangulation of economic and mental poverty where all our resources are being exploited. We saw a documentary about the women of the Niger-Delta. How could people in a region that is making all of that oil, still, remain so poor? It will never happen in the west!

Documentary filmmaking can be cumbersome. We talk of funding and the technicalities such as accuracy. How are we getting the young ones involved?

The Nollywood industry, who is funding it? It’s tough, it’s not easy. In the beginning, people said Africa or rather Nigeria will not catch up the big league like Hollywood and Bollywood in the film industry. Once there is a will, there is a way. People are making films right now. I remember way back, we used to line up at the cinemas and the kind of films we would watch were mainly from the west. Today a lot of people are now watching their own films. The stories in Nollywood are not the best stories. The stories in Nollywood, when we watch them in New York are very embarrassing, but do you know why Nollywood has succeeded, I mean the concept? It’s simple, because Nigerians and Africans are seeing themselves through films.

Mirroring on two documentary films shown at the festival so far, ‘Fuelling Poverty’ and ‘Miners shot Down’. Africans against Africans?

One of our problems in Africa is leadership. Our leaders have not learnt to love their own people. They don’t give back in terms of service to the trust repose in them by the people. They only marginalise and negotiate the people away.

The African filmmakers?

The African filmmakers are heroes! One of the filmmakers said it took her two years to make one film. That is two years of someone’s life but the film is going to last forever.

Interview by Ireho Aito

AFRICA WAKE UP- Article written by Aito Ireho

There is Worship in the City: Chief Mrs Mojisola Adetayo's Testimony

There is Worship in the City: Chief Mrs Mojisola Adetayo's Testimony

My name is Chief[Mrs.] Mojisola Adetayo. I am a trader. I joined Ijo Orunmila Adulawo in 1995. I got married to Oluwo Olorunfunmi Adetayo in 1994. We started coming to Ijo Orunmila Adulawo once in a while. Later, when I moved finally to his house, I completed my movement into the faith. Since then, I continue to worship with them.

My husband died in 2005 and in 2007, I became worried. I thought about my staying in the faith or leave. To God be the Glory, I am still here and part of the faith.

In 2011, I was elected as ‘Mother-of-the church.’ I was elated and happy. I never expected it. I lost my husband early, but today, I am still in the church.

Women in Orunmila church are so attractive. We worship together and cope with me.

I participate in many activities and programs concerning the church. I am also the secretary of mothers’ and fathers’  To God be the Glory, the church boasts of devoted faithful. No rancor or bickering. Issues are resolved amicably.

No regrets whatsoever. I see myself as a human being. People come around me encouraging me not to lose hope.

I fear no foe. Once I say my prayers, I know God answers through Ijo Orunmila Adulawo. I am grateful.

Since I joined the faith, I had my two children. No complications during my pregnancy. I had safe delivery on the two occasions. My first child is Olatunbosun Adeleye Adetayo Olorunfunmi. I thank God for his life. He attends University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

My second child is Ifayemisi Adetayo, she is preparing to write her final year examination papers. By God’s grace, in 2018, she will be at the university college.

I thank God for their lives. I don’t lack to take care of them. When I see my children, I am always happy. I know with them, our future will be better.

I advice women, maybe you are a widow, come to God of Orunmila. The church of Orunmila is the husband of widows. If you are going through barrenness come don’t be afraid.

In the beginning, I also thought it was a place where they make sacrifice here and there with all sorts.

Hand over your life and you will see the joy beneath. There is hope in Orunmila church.

John Kenny| Black and White of African Societies Not Forgotten

John Kenny| Black and White of African Societies Not Forgotten

John Kenny| Black and White of African Societies Not Forgotten

There are several records of people who are so passionate about Africa. The continent means a lot to them. From their point of view, Africa goes beyond war, famine, hunger, civil strife, grants- in- aid. In fact, for them, Africa is civilization in isolation.

One of such people is British photographer John Kenny. His splendid and powerful first class evocative black and white photographs of Africa and her remote communities are surely, an introduction about Africa and her cheered histories.

Mungo Park and his fellow western explorers may have landed in Africa purposely for the western dominance, economic exploitations, continental influence, and very peculiar personal ambitions. Yes, personal ambitions but John Kenny wanted to score more goals as well.

Despite the intense heat, dusty conditions that is less than favourable for an expatriate like him, working and laboring all over Africa and digging holes into hitherto abandoned communities, command applause from a man like John that strive for success only, despite his little knowledge of photography education. While he journeys into the unknown, his traveling infrastructure always all the time is less reliable. Moreover, he has to grapple with the fact that he carries all these gadgets on his own, maybe with the aid of a guide, unlike the earliest explorers and adventurers of Africa’s quest who hired countless African guides, assistants and even ‘comfort women’ at their beck and call, John sojourns through it all with little assistance, but no worries so far for the ‘curious’ photographer.

John Kenny believes you miss a lot when you ignore Africa photo-splendour. The awareness is awesome. The continent may look under malnourish in some people’s eyes, but for some, Africa is the Motherland. There is nowhere he would rather work than Africa’s most isolated regions. “Africa encourages you to slow down and engage yourself into the minds of the people at a much deeper level than expected,” he explains. “I feel I have found a place that offers me limitless creative possibilities.”

The Briton has been documenting Africa’s extreme areas and communities since 2006. Kenny has made it his personal mission getting himself on a risky and very dangerous adventure that would have made the team of National Geographical channels look with awestruck faces. It is an assiduous mission that needs enormous courage a human can muster. It takes more than a more to venture into such isolated places and come out man made. John Kenny always comes out a better person, because every journey brings him close to humanity at natural position. He has moved from ordinary view of these people to a better view of understanding their ways of life. His quest has taken him to Togo, Ethiopia, Namibia, Mali, Benin, and Kenya. In Kenya, he photographed members of the Rendille, Samburu, Pokot and Turkana societies.

“In 2006, I developed my style of portrait photography within traditional communities, heavily influenced by the dramatic pictures of chiaroscuro artists. Chiaroscuro is an Italian term which literally means light-dark. Back then, at the very start of my Africa journey, I was buzzing with energy having met people of real magnetism just days into my trip. I was excited by extraordinary people and fascinating cultures and wondered how I could possibly communicate and express these feelings of excitement to friends and family back home.”

He had quickly observed that many of the societies still employ practices, including nomadic pastoralism that have remained untouched for centuries and this tradition and isolation shines through in their appearances.

It is this sense of identity that Kenny targets in his striking and sympathetic images. He explains, “For me, an individual appearance demonstrates their interpretation of the way their culture relates to them,” he says.

John maintains that through his research, marital status, number of children and age group can often be read at a glance.” The personal styles of individuals go a long way too, this the photographer admits. It is a way to address that universal predicament how to attract the opposite sex like the Wodaabe nomads of Niger has a master class in personal grooming all proved Africa and Africans have never been in the dark at any time.

One astonishing moment from the technique explored by the photographer is the power of realism. John developed a natural ambience of a hut and sunlight and he quickly started to take his sequence in many series that later evolved into an iconic collection of images he had taken while running the wild in Africa.

“I made a conscious decision at that time to leave a more documentary style of environmental portraiture to others. Practicing this new technique in remote African villages in 2006 I had nothing but sunshine and a hut available as a great ‘open studio’: so I used these parameters and started experimenting (I’ve never really liked flash anyway). So it’s simply the illumination of natural sunlight, and sun on dry earth, that reaches into the darkness of huts and lights up these remarkable people. Sun and dry earth are the only ingredients required for the lighting in my prints. And of course, you also need to find exceptional people!”

In Africa, a visitor is welcome wholeheartedly and this is one of many values that the photographer learnt each time he sojourns on his photo expedition. John Kenny discovers more that Africans easily share things with one another, a culture that is very rare and absolutely impossible in the west. There is always a common goal among the people. Knowledge is easily acquired and freely shared, unlike over there, where knowledge is patented.

“I keep returning to Africa to photograph because I’m fascinated to encounter societies that are able to survive in some of the most arid, isolated and difficult environments that people have settled in. If you haven’t visited these places then the reality of living is not nearly as romantic or idealized as one might imagine. Life takes place against a backdrop of very uncertain resources and enormous hardships, but traditions and hospitality towards outsiders remain intact.”

The urbanization of African cities coupled with the arrival of the internet, nevertheless, traditions still prevail. Some of them have never seen their personal images ever before, until, John started showing and the joy in them always look so terrific. The nomads such as the Fulani, Wodaabe, Dogon tribes, are so how stylishly arrogant in nature. They roam about with well cut hair and mustachio with manicure and pedicure tools in their pouch, while small size mirrors form part of the small bag components they clad around. At every squatting position, one sees them admiring their personalities through the mirror. The men see themselves as sex symbols.

John Kerry is not stopping at these volumes acquired already. Rather, he reveals some of the secrets behind his success stories, such as ability to work with available gadgets and equipment, yet not grandiose. “My favourite tools are sharp prime lenses and cameras that let you capture the tiniest pieces of detail: whilst these details may be insignificant alone, when aggregated I feel they help paint the picture of the environment and how each person adapts to theirs. These details may be insignificant alone, when aggregated I feel they help paint the picture of the environment and how each person adapts to theirs.”