Africa in Motion 2013: A Continent on the Move

With cinema being such a fluid art it is fitting then that this 8^th year of Africa in Motion takes its title verb so literally, with its theme for 2013 being Twende: Africa on the Move. (‘Twende’ is a Swahili word which translates as ‘let's go!’) Screening in Glasgow and Edinburgh between 24 Oct and 1 Nov, the festival is concerned with all types of movement, as festival founder Lizelle Bisschoff explains: 

“The movement of people, immigration, asylum. Also physical movement, so we have a few strands about dance and sport, street life and city life. There’s a few films around political movement, a couple of North African films that deal with the Arab Spring. We have an evening of films which deal with the women’s movement and also a focus on sexuality.” 

So an overarching theme which opens itself to the full gamut of life, then. But AiM remains a festival of film rather than issues. “We’ve always, always, always presented ourselves as an art festival,” says Bisschoff. “It’s first and foremost a film festival, celebrating the brilliance of African cinema.” Cinema that has been neglected by western audiences – something AiM would like to remedy.

UK Film Council Statistics show that between 1995 and 2005 only nine African films were put on general release in the UK. “So that’s less than one per year,” I’m told by Bisschoff. “I think now that over the last four or five years you can see that’s changing: there are more African films being screened in arthouse cinemas like Filmhouse and the Picturehouse cinemas.” 

If this is a drip feeding of the continent’s output throughout the year, then AiM welcomes a flash flood, offering Danny Glover starring in the surreal science fiction drama The Children’s Republic, where Guinea-Bissauan director Flora Gomes imagines a small state in a futuristic Africa being ruled by children, whose parents have abandoned them after ruining their country with war. There’s also South African filmmaker Andrew Worsdale returning 27 years after his controversial Shot Down was banned in his home country, who now brings us Durban Poison, a noir romance based on the true story of South Africa’s equivalent to Bonnie and Clyde.

It’s an impressively diverse programme, a principle the AiM team were eager to achieve when curating a festival of film from this vast continent. The term ‘African cinema’ sounds ridiculous if used for anything other than a literal geographic grouping. “The use of that term indicates that there’s something uniform about it, which of course there isn’t,” says Bisschoff. “It’s hugely diverse, covering filmmaking from over 50 countries. I think that we’ve always shown films from as many African countries as possible.” 

And the menu of film they have to pick from has developed since Africa in Motion launched in 2006. From the 90s onwards Nigeria’s Nollywood has grown to become the world’s second largest film industry behind Bollywood in terms of number of productions, dominating the cultural landscape of Africa for years after. This was in sharp contrast to the cinematic output of West Africa, with a cultural elite making resource-heavy film after international training. Post-apartheid, South Africa as a country in flux has gained international recognition with (Academy Award winner) Tsotsi and District 9, leaving behind their darker days of oppressive censorship. It’s ironic then that AiM’s opening film for 2013 was momentarily banned by the powers that be in its country of origin. Of Good Report, a serial killer origins story with accusations of child pornography, was pulled from the Durban International Film Festival in July this year, a move which echoed darker days. It’s a brave and controversial choice, then, for AiM to place as a centrepiece to its programme.

AiM challenges perceptions of what Africa is and how its cinema can be interpreted. The festival looks past the dominant discourse of conflict and poverty in the western media. Starting from the reflections of the Arab Spring (Winter of Discontent) to the Olympic medal winners from rural Ethiopian town Bekoji (Town of Runners) all the way down to the aforementioned controversy in the south, there are new narratives to be found for those willing to take a chance. “There’s lots of work to be done in audience development for African cinema in the UK,” Bisschoff explains. “But a festival like Africa in Motion shows that there are audiences out there. Of course you have to educate and familiarise them with African cinema.” It’s not Africa which needs to wake up then, it’s us who need to wake up to it.