'Africa's Lost Classics' in Context
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Glasgow
Department Name: School of Culture & Creative Arts
Abstract
This project aims to bring a number of screenings of 'lost African film classics' to UK audiences, complemented by public and educational events and activities to contextualise the films for audiences, in collaboration with the five UK African film festivals - Africa in Motion in Scotland, Film Africa in London, Afrika Eye in Bristol, Watch-Africa in Cardiff, and the Cambridge African Film Festival. The project arose out of two unanticipated outcomes of our work on bringing 'lost African classics' to audiences during the 2006 and 2007 Africa in Motion Film Festival (supported by the AHRC in 2006):
1. The width and breath of classic African cinema, which was unknown to us as we started our work on recovering classic African films, but became evident from the edited collection we published on our research in this area, "Africa's Lost Classics: New Histories of African Cinema" (Legenda, 2014), and a desire to give more of these classic African films a new lease of life through making the films accessible to film festival audiences and film scholars alike.
2. The successful collaboration between the five UK African film festivals, which did not exist when we commenced with our work on recovering African film classics in 2006.
Our ongoing work on recovering neglected and forgotten African film classics has always had innovation and public impact at its core, with a direct link between our research and publications on the one hand, and public engagement and knowledge exchange on the other. This follow-on funding will allow us to expand and extend the impact of the project through bringing a further selection of little-known African films to UK audiences, and providing an intellectual and historical context to the films which will open up discussions on African cinema among cinephile audiences, film practitioners, students, school children, researchers and scholars of African film, and develop new audiences for African cinema, scholarly and otherwise.
This project builds on the achievements of our original AHRC-funded 'Recovering Lost African Film Classics' project, which screened four neglected/forgotten films from Francophone West Africa as part of the inaugural Africa in Motion (AiM) Film Festival in 2006. The aim of the project was to develop a more complex history of Francophone West African filmmaking and, in addition to screenings at AiM, we published a special dossier on these films for the prestigious film journal Screen in 2007. This modest AHRC project led to almost a decade of further research in this area: it was initially complemented in 2007 by a Carnegie-funded programme of films by female directors from across the continent (Algeria, Senegal and Angola), and the desire to uncover the lost histories of African filmmaking across the entire continent eventually led to the publication in 2014 of our edited volume.
As our research over the past decade has revealed, indigenous cinematic production emerged at different times and at different speeds across the continent - 1920s for Egypt; 1950s for South Africa; 1960s for Francophone West Africa - and we propose to screen a further selection of classic African films drawn from across the continent and from different periods at the five UK African film festivals in Oct and Nov 2017. Our aim is thus to bring to a wider audience the full complexity of African film history, something of which we were only dimly aware of at the outset of the Lost Classics project, and to incorporate further innovative screenings, public events, and educational activities around the lost classics. These screenings and events will historically and culturally contextualise the films for our audiences, provide a space for discussion and debate about Africa, enhance audiences' understanding of the historical development of African cinema, and ultimately increase access to African cinema to cinema-going audiences and as such create new audiences for African film.
1. The width and breath of classic African cinema, which was unknown to us as we started our work on recovering classic African films, but became evident from the edited collection we published on our research in this area, "Africa's Lost Classics: New Histories of African Cinema" (Legenda, 2014), and a desire to give more of these classic African films a new lease of life through making the films accessible to film festival audiences and film scholars alike.
2. The successful collaboration between the five UK African film festivals, which did not exist when we commenced with our work on recovering African film classics in 2006.
Our ongoing work on recovering neglected and forgotten African film classics has always had innovation and public impact at its core, with a direct link between our research and publications on the one hand, and public engagement and knowledge exchange on the other. This follow-on funding will allow us to expand and extend the impact of the project through bringing a further selection of little-known African films to UK audiences, and providing an intellectual and historical context to the films which will open up discussions on African cinema among cinephile audiences, film practitioners, students, school children, researchers and scholars of African film, and develop new audiences for African cinema, scholarly and otherwise.
This project builds on the achievements of our original AHRC-funded 'Recovering Lost African Film Classics' project, which screened four neglected/forgotten films from Francophone West Africa as part of the inaugural Africa in Motion (AiM) Film Festival in 2006. The aim of the project was to develop a more complex history of Francophone West African filmmaking and, in addition to screenings at AiM, we published a special dossier on these films for the prestigious film journal Screen in 2007. This modest AHRC project led to almost a decade of further research in this area: it was initially complemented in 2007 by a Carnegie-funded programme of films by female directors from across the continent (Algeria, Senegal and Angola), and the desire to uncover the lost histories of African filmmaking across the entire continent eventually led to the publication in 2014 of our edited volume.
As our research over the past decade has revealed, indigenous cinematic production emerged at different times and at different speeds across the continent - 1920s for Egypt; 1950s for South Africa; 1960s for Francophone West Africa - and we propose to screen a further selection of classic African films drawn from across the continent and from different periods at the five UK African film festivals in Oct and Nov 2017. Our aim is thus to bring to a wider audience the full complexity of African film history, something of which we were only dimly aware of at the outset of the Lost Classics project, and to incorporate further innovative screenings, public events, and educational activities around the lost classics. These screenings and events will historically and culturally contextualise the films for our audiences, provide a space for discussion and debate about Africa, enhance audiences' understanding of the historical development of African cinema, and ultimately increase access to African cinema to cinema-going audiences and as such create new audiences for African film.
Planned Impact
This project's impact agenda is driven by:
1. The early successes of screening a small handful of 'lost African film classics' at the Africa in Motion film festival in 2006 and 2007.
2. Our awareness of the ongoing marginalisation of African cinema in British film-going culture on the one hand, and on the other hand our awareness of the rich range of classic African films, many never seen in the UK previously, or only at one-off screenings, which came to light through our decade-long research into classic African cinema (which commenced in 2006 with our initial AHRC grant).
3. The successful collaboration between the five African film festivals in the UK, which did not exist with the inception of our lost classic project in 2006.
The project activities will benefit a range of communities:
1. Young people: We will develop educational activities - including screenings, workshops and educational resources - for primary and secondary learners across the UK, which will be hosted in collaboration with a range of schools and the educational film charity Into Film. The screenings and workshops will educate learners about African stories, histories and cultures, linked to the National Curricula in Scotland, England and Wales.
2. Teachers: Our educational resources will provide opportunities to teachers to continue the learning potential of the films screened to schools, and will incorporate a range of educational activities in line with the National Curricula.
3. General public: Film-going audiences in the UK with an interest in non-mainstream and world cinema will gain multiple opportunities to engage with African cinema, through innovative 'pop-up' screenings and complementary events, discussions, and exhibitions. We will also specifically target African diaspora audiences in the UK, through holding screenings in community centres and other venues used by the African diaspora as gathering spaces.
4. The five UK African film festivals: The reach and effectiveness of the UK African film festivals will be enhanced and increased through this project, which will see a collaboration between the five festivals in hosting the screenings and accompanying events. All these festivals have been working tirelessly in bringing African cinema to their respective regional audiences, many through a mostly volunteer-based staffing system, and this project will strengthen the collaboration between the festivals, while also strengthening the work of the individual festivals, increasing future possibilities for funding, partnership building and audience development.
5. The third sector and public sector: The project will engage with a number of third and public sector partners, including cinemas, libraries, community centres, galleries, museums, educational centres and others, providing opportunities to these partners to develop their portfolios of activities though an engagement with African cinema.
The links between African film scholarship and public impact are integral to this project, as it will bring classic African films to UK audiences that they would not otherwise be able to see. Through an extensive publicity and marketing campaign it is anticipated that the project will sustain existing audiences and create new ones for African cinema. Through the collaboration between the five UK African film festivals, the reach of the project will be maximised, with the films screened in partner cinemas and venues. Bringing these little-known African films to UK audiences will enrich British film-going culture, work to counter the marginalisation and under-representation of African cinema in the UK, and offer new insights into and understanding of African cultures and histories.
1. The early successes of screening a small handful of 'lost African film classics' at the Africa in Motion film festival in 2006 and 2007.
2. Our awareness of the ongoing marginalisation of African cinema in British film-going culture on the one hand, and on the other hand our awareness of the rich range of classic African films, many never seen in the UK previously, or only at one-off screenings, which came to light through our decade-long research into classic African cinema (which commenced in 2006 with our initial AHRC grant).
3. The successful collaboration between the five African film festivals in the UK, which did not exist with the inception of our lost classic project in 2006.
The project activities will benefit a range of communities:
1. Young people: We will develop educational activities - including screenings, workshops and educational resources - for primary and secondary learners across the UK, which will be hosted in collaboration with a range of schools and the educational film charity Into Film. The screenings and workshops will educate learners about African stories, histories and cultures, linked to the National Curricula in Scotland, England and Wales.
2. Teachers: Our educational resources will provide opportunities to teachers to continue the learning potential of the films screened to schools, and will incorporate a range of educational activities in line with the National Curricula.
3. General public: Film-going audiences in the UK with an interest in non-mainstream and world cinema will gain multiple opportunities to engage with African cinema, through innovative 'pop-up' screenings and complementary events, discussions, and exhibitions. We will also specifically target African diaspora audiences in the UK, through holding screenings in community centres and other venues used by the African diaspora as gathering spaces.
4. The five UK African film festivals: The reach and effectiveness of the UK African film festivals will be enhanced and increased through this project, which will see a collaboration between the five festivals in hosting the screenings and accompanying events. All these festivals have been working tirelessly in bringing African cinema to their respective regional audiences, many through a mostly volunteer-based staffing system, and this project will strengthen the collaboration between the festivals, while also strengthening the work of the individual festivals, increasing future possibilities for funding, partnership building and audience development.
5. The third sector and public sector: The project will engage with a number of third and public sector partners, including cinemas, libraries, community centres, galleries, museums, educational centres and others, providing opportunities to these partners to develop their portfolios of activities though an engagement with African cinema.
The links between African film scholarship and public impact are integral to this project, as it will bring classic African films to UK audiences that they would not otherwise be able to see. Through an extensive publicity and marketing campaign it is anticipated that the project will sustain existing audiences and create new ones for African cinema. Through the collaboration between the five UK African film festivals, the reach of the project will be maximised, with the films screened in partner cinemas and venues. Bringing these little-known African films to UK audiences will enrich British film-going culture, work to counter the marginalisation and under-representation of African cinema in the UK, and offer new insights into and understanding of African cultures and histories.
Organisations
- University of Glasgow (Lead Research Organisation)
- Watch Africa, Wales (Collaboration)
- Africa in Motion film festival (Collaboration, Project Partner)
- Bristol Festivals (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE (Collaboration)
- White Space Gallery (Collaboration)
- Royal African Society (Collaboration, Project Partner)
- St Cuthbert's RC Primary School (Collaboration)
- Animation Jam (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW (Collaboration)
- InSitu London PLC (Collaboration)
- Into Film (Collaboration)
- Cambridge African Film Festival (Project Partner)
- Watch-Africa Film Festival (Project Partner)
- Afrika Eye Film Festival (Project Partner)
| Title | African Film: Looking Back Through the Lens |
| Description | As part of this project, we also curated a beautiful exhibition entitled African Film: Looking Back Through the Lens. This exhibition revisits the history of African cinema, and takes in films that have never before been screened in the UK. It offers a look at the long history behind some of the world's masterpieces of African cinema. Twelve central displays provide information on the films' histories, political and cultural contexts, and restoration stories. A map connects back to the films' geographical history, and clips illustrate the look and feel. The earliest film in the exhibition is De Voortrekkers, from 1916 South Africa. The most recent film is from 1999: Rage by Newton Aduaka. But the majority of films on display originated at the end of the 1960s and in the 1970s, a period of political, cultural and geographical change and renewal in World Cinema: The Third Cinema Manifesto shook up the status quo, as did many other New Waves worldwide, including the wave of New Arab Cinema. |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Impact | This beautiful exhibition was formulated in collaboration with In Situ, a London-based collective of exhibition designers. They created a series of cast-iron stands, with information boards and iPads that showed clips of the films under discussion. 12 of these stands were created with a timeline and a map attached to explain the development of African cinema historically and geographically. Two full-scale exhibitions were curated: one in WhiteSpace gallery in Edinburgh and one in KelvinHall in Glasgow. Both these exhibitions were very well attended and feedback from visitors was undecidedly positive, even requesting the exhibition travel further afield to other cities in the UK. This exhibition aimed to revive lost histories, spaces and times, and included key classic films accompanied by posters, contextual information and film clips. A pre-exhibit interactive display at Kelvin Hall in Glasgow took place between 23 and 28 Oct. This was accompanied by a symposium on Curating the Global Film Archive on Sat 28 Oct at the Moving Image Archive in Kelvin Hall. A full-scale exhibition opened with a wine reception at Whitespace Gallery in Edinburgh on Mon 30 Oct and runs until 9 Nov. Finally, a photography-based exhibition was displayed in Filmhouse Cafe Bar in Edinburgh during the film festival between 27 Oct to 5 Nov, and served as a link between the Filmhouse screenings and the exhibition in Whitespace. |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/event/108 |
| Title | DCP version of Flame |
| Description | Flame was the first Zimbabwean film since independence and is a tribute to the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army's female guerrillas. Flame was the first film to be set during the historical period of the country's liberation struggle. Shot in Zimbabwe with an entirely Zimbabwean cast, the film is based on the accounts of women who joined the liberation war. The film shows how in the 1970s in former Rhodesia, the people stand up against their oppressors. As war reaches rural villages, friends Florence and Nyasha run away from home to join the fighters in Mozambican training camps. Both adopt revolutionary identities: Nyasha becomes Liberty, while Florence brands herself Flame. Flame created controversy in Zimbabwe, as the realistic depiction of the treatment of women in the liberation army was seen as anti-nationalist. The film also serves as a critique for post-independence Zimbabwe, and Mugabe's rule. |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Impact | The film stars Marian Kunonga and Ulla Mahaka as the central protagonists, but was confiscated by police for being "subversive and pornographic". It was returned to the producers after a worldwide campaign. Ultimately, it passed Zimbabwean censors and became a box office success and one of the most important films in Zimbabwean history. Because of this difficult historical life of the film, the 35mm print was lost for a long time, until it was located in South Africa. In collaboration with the producer and the staff at Refinery Post Production Facility in Gauteng in South Africa, the project invested in its digitisation, and restored the film onto DCP, so that this important document of feminist vigour and female involvement in the struggle for independence is now able to travel to festivals worldwide. |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/event/149 |
| Title | Subtitled DCP of Fatma 75 |
| Description | In this powerful essay-film, university student Fatma goes on a historical, feminist voyage and gathers interviews with iconic women from history. Fatma speaks to aristocratic women from the ancient past and contemporary revolutionaries involved in the struggle for Tunisian independence. Particular focus lies on developments from the 1930s to the 1950s, when Tunisian women were increasingly struggling for emancipation and the controversial Personal Status Law was passed, which aimed at the institutionalised equality of women and men. The innovative style of docu-fiction allows director Selma Baccar to present a fictional narrative element interspersed with actual interview footage, re-enactments of historical circumstances and archival material. This film dates from 1976, and only exists with French subtitles. It had been banned in Tunisia, and had been lost as it was never screened except on one occasion in the Netherlands. So the film also existed with Dutch subtitles. The ALC project invested in the digitisation of the film and the translation of its subtitles, in order to make the film widely available to anglophone audiences around the world. There is an interest in the film in North America and in Australia, and so this subtitling and digitisation (it now exists on DCP) enable the film's new life by travelling to film festivals around the world. |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Impact | The film was screened in Edinburgh and London, to great acclaim. Feedback about the screening of Fatma 75 in London, from Laura Wilson at South London Gallery: "The event went really well: it was sold out and everyone really enjoyed the film - overall it was great and I'm so pleased we were able to screen the film." |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/event/165 |
| Title | Subtitled proRes File of Mossane |
| Description | In this stunning Senegalese drama, a beautiful girl finds herself torn between potential husbands, and between tradition and modernity. Mossane is an extraordinary beauty. She is in love with Fara, a young student, but she has been betrothed to another. She dislikes her rich fiancé, Diogoye, who sends money and gifts to the villagers. Unable to follow her dreams and bound by tradition, Mossane takes action and tragedy ensues. Safi Faye (*1943) is a Senegalese filmmaker and ethnologist from Dakar. Faye based the story on her personal experiences and on Serer mythology. Still, for Faye, Mossane is an adolescent like any other, and her resistance to her parents' wishes is a universal coming-of-age story. |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Impact | Faye's latest film Mossane portrays a beautiful example of a young female heroine. Mossane was first screened in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes in 1996 but has never been screened in the UK. Africa in Motion restored the film in collaboration with Titra Film in France. While her earlier films privileged the documentary and docufiction style, Mossane tells a fictionalised story. The film did not exist with English subtitles and on a version that was allowed or able to travel to festivals for screenings. Since we have restored and subtitled the film, it is now screening in more places where English is the main language, around the world. |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/event/181 |
| Description | The main objectives of the project, which were all fully met, were as follows: 1. To hold a series of 'lost African film classics' screenings and accompanying events during the five UK African film festivals in Oct/Nov 2017. 33 screenings of lost classics took place across the UK from Oct-Dec 2017. 2. To incorporate a selection of the 'lost classics' into three educational workshops that will travel across the UK and will be held in conjunction with the five UK African film festivals, with screenings accompanied by specially designed educational resource packs to be disseminated to teachers for follow-on use after the screenings. Two extensive educational resource packs were developed and are being disseminated to schools across the UK. 3. To curate and mount an audio-visual exhibition entitled 'Looking Back Through the Lens' inspired by the films described in the Africa's Lost Classics edited collection (see description below) in art galleries/museums at two key locations across the UK. The exhibition took place in Edinburgh and Glasgow and were attended by over 1,000 people. 4. To curate a series of innovative 'pop-up' screenings in cinemas and non-cinema venues during the five African film festivals, by establishing contemporary links with lost African classics and thus bringing these little-known and neglected films to the attention of UK audiences and lovers of world cinema. 33 screenings of the lost classics took place across the UK. 5. To promote the lost classics screened in the five UK African film festivals and the accompanying events through dedicated publicity materials, including print publicity (brochure, flyer and poster) and a website. A dedicated website for the lost classics is in development. The project gained extensive press coverage, notably through an interview on BBC Radio 4's The Film Programme and an article in Sight & Sound Magazine. |
| Exploitation Route | We have been contacted by several cinemas and film festivals in the UK and internationally, who are interested in screenings some of the lost classics we brought back into public awareness through the project. These include: Nottingham Broadway cinema, Leeds Hyde Park Picturehouse, Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Brighton, Brighton Cine-City Film Festival, London Feminist Film Festival, The Royal Anthropological Institute, London, Melbourne International Film Festival, Melbourne, American Film Institute Cultural Centre, Washington DC, Zanzibar International Film Festival, Dublin Feminist Film Festival, Zuma International Film Festival, Abuja, Nigeria. These follow-on screenings will take place throughout 2018. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Education,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/ |
| Description | Supported by the AHRC grant, Africa in Motion Film Festival and the Universities of Stirling and Glasgow worked in partnership to develop an extensive programme of "lost" African films, which built and continues to build on the work of Dr Lizelle Bisschoff, founder of the festival and Lecturer at the University of Glasgow. With Prof David Murphy, Dr Bisschoff has spent years researching and screening classic African films, in order to create a historical context for the power of African cinema, and the contemporary films screened at Africa in Motion. They hired Stefanie Van de Peer in March, who coordinated the collaboration with Africa in Motion and who enabled the different aspects of the project to be curated. From 2006 onwards, AiM has screened some "lost" classics almost every year. In 2017 this preparatory work was consolidated with a specific strand of the festival dedicated to these films. "Lost" in the context of African cinema means films that are no longer screened in cinemas or festivals, and that in most cases had very limited distribution at the time they were first produced. This year, we screened over 20 African classics, among which a package of African animation for children and films for young people on diversity and race relations in the UK, and - most significantly - we restored, subtitled, digitised and screened three "lost" women's films, films which have never existed with English subtitles and had never been screened to audiences in the UK before. Films included on the programme were: Al-Mumia, The Night of Counting the Years (Egypt), Badou Boy and Touki Bouki (Senegal), Chronicles of the Years of Embers (Algeria), De Voortrekkers (South Africa), Mueda (Angola), Living in Bondage (Nigeria), Rage (UK), Soleil Ô (Mauritania), Trances (Morocco) and Women with Open Eyes (Togo). These were screened at a variety of locations, and across the UK: In Scottish cinemas GFT and Filmhouse but also at pop-up screenings in North Edinburgh Arts, Dominion Cinema, Corinthian and Glasgow Women's Library. We worked with these organisations and venues to enable local and more diverse audiences to see these films. For all screenings we organised appropriate introductions and Q&As after the films with authorities in aspects of the film. We also focused on children's films, and included classic animated films on the programmes for children and young people, both in schools and at pop-up events. We have screened Toad visits his In-Laws (DRC) and Bon Voyage, Sim (Niger) at St Davids and st Cuthbert's schools in Edinburgh, in collaboration with IntoFilm. In addition we created a package of children's films and a package of adult animation films, both of which had "lost" films from the ALC project on them: the children's films were screened at Storytelling Centre and the films for adults at Woodland Creatures on Leith Walk. Both events were hugely popular and completely sold out. In addition to the screenings in Scotland, we also toured these ALC films across the UK, at the four other African film festivals, in London, Cambridge, Wales and Bristol. Apart from Cambridge, which struggled with funding issues this year, each of the partner festivals screened five classic films, at a variety of locations: either at their regular venues or at pop-up events in spaces like, e.g. South London Gallery, The Castle Cinema, SOAS, RichMix (London); Watershed, Arnolfini (Bristol), Butetown Community Centre, Temple of Peace, Pontio (Wales). Again, we ensured the film was accompanied by an appropriate introduction or a discussion after the screening in order to contextualise the film in African cinema history. Around 2,500 people attended the lost classics screenings and events across the country. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2017 |
| Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Education,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal,Policy & public services |
| Description | Africa's Lost Classics impact on TANO programming |
| Geographic Reach | Europe |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | Africa's Lost Classics (ALC) has influenced the manner in which the festivals that are part of the TANO consortium approach classic cinema. The five festivals (TANO means 'five' in Swahili) in the UK that focus on African cinema learned to collaborate together with the ALC project coordinators in order to devote time and space on their programme to old and classic films. 2017 was a special year for the consortium of the five African Film Festivals in the UK, as we collectively revisit the history of African cinema. With this project we brought (back) to UK screens some of the greatest African films ever. Old and lost films have been rediscovered, and we have enabled the restoration of three African women's films. The programme includes films and events that take place during AiM in Scotland, Watch Africa in Wales, Afrika Eye in Bristol, Film Africa in London and the Cambridge African Film Festival in Cambridge, during Oct and Nov 2017. |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/ |
| Description | Glasgow Knowledge Exchange Flexible Fund |
| Amount | £11,840 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Glasgow |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2018 |
| End | 07/2018 |
| Description | University of Glasgow Knowledge Exchange Flexible Funding |
| Amount | £7,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Glasgow |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 06/2018 |
| End | 12/2018 |
| Title | Teachers Resource on Classic African Animation |
| Description | Research has shown that children learn more quickly through oral storytelling: their reading and writing skills develop more quickly. This pack is intended to educate students about Africa and a sense of place; about family-ties and the role of storytelling in education in Africa; and about animation. It will stimulate imagination and creative thinking, it will encourage children to think about the similarities and the differences between children living in the UK and in Africa, enhance cultural awareness, and improve listening skills through storytelling. Teachers are also encouraged to incorporate some language learning into their exploration of African animation, using the 'Passeport pour la francophonie' on the SCILT website: www.scilt.org.uk This aligns with both the citizenship, the language and the art and design strands of the primary school curriculum - National Curriculum in England, the Curriculum for Excellence in Scotland, the Northern Ireland Curriculum and the National Curriculum for Wales. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | ALC has collaborated extensively with IntoFilm in order to make these resources available to teachers. The resource is meant to increase confidence in primary school teachers to teach some difficult issues and to expand their knowledge of creative teaching methods for younger children. ALC has also based two workshops on the resource, and these were delivered in two primary schools in Edinburgh. Both pupils and teachers were really pleased with the results: there were two films made and these are available online, while the teachers and pupils also indicated a considerable impact on their experience and knowledge of both African stories and animation methods. We highlighted to the teachers the possibility for them to practice animation in school, using artisanal methods of art and creation, rather than the very complex and difficult modern technological tools to make digital films. This resource includes: 7 very short animated films that use simple storytelling techniques Step-by-step lesson plans on storytelling Genres and interpretation Learning to listen and retell stories creatively Think creatively about animating your own stories Some simple historical facts on animation and games to start to think about global geography Accompanying resources and activities for each lesson Comprehensive fact sheets on all topics covered |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/assets/Uploads/Classic-African-Animation.pdf |
| Title | Teaching Resource: Race Relations in the UK |
| Description | The ALC project has created two highly researched and valuable teaching resources. One of these is dedicated to Race Relations in the UK and encouraged to be used in Secondary schools. It aims at increasing teachers' confidence in teaching these topics in their classes. This resource is intended to educate students about what it means when we talk about race in the UK, about democracy, historical and contemporary relations between races, and the connection between music and identity. The films will encourage learners to think about identity, enhance awareness of cultural diversity, and improve knowledge and understanding of rights and responsibilities as global citizens. It will encourage them to think about freedom and democracy. These issues remain highly relevant, living in an age of mass migration, where Islamophobia and racism remain issues that young people have to deal with. It also includes important facts on a side of history in the UK that remains under-explored. Lessons begin with an enquiry about the topics covered, starting with a basic stimulus directly related to their own lives and then using this to branch out into wider discussion. The topics in this resource fulfil the statutory requirements for many aspects of the national curricula, including the following: Human Rights and democracy Equality and social justice Exploring social, moral, cultural and spiritual development through art and music Freedom and Democracy Lessons will look at the meaning of the term democracy, what a democratic society looks like, and what freedom means on a community and an individual level. Creative thinking will allow students to discuss and form opinions on freedom of expression, political correctness and creative language use in their own communities. This aligns with both the citizenship, the art and design and the history strands of the secondary school curriculum - National Curriculum in England, the Curriculum for Excellence in Scotland, the Northern Ireland Curriculum and the National Curriculum for Wales. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | ALC worked with IntoFilm in order to disseminate the availability of the resources for teachers in secondary education in the UK. The teachers can download the resources from the Africa in Motion website. This resource engages with two very important British films: Jemima + Johnny (1966) by Lionel Ngakane and Rage (1999) by Newton Aduaka. Ngakane was the first Black South African ever to direct a film, and Rage was the first independent film made by an entirely black crew in the UK. This resource includes: 7 step-by-step lesson plans on: Music and race Fashion/Style and identity Race and social justice Resources and activities Games, quizzes, workshop ideas Comprehensive fact sheets on all topics covered |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/assets/Uploads/Britains-History-of-Race-Relations.pdf |
| Title | African Film Database |
| Description | The African Film Database is a platform, developed by the Africa in Motion Film Festival, providing anyone with an interest in African cinema with the ability to search through a catalogue of over 1,500 films. Since the inception of the festival in 2006 Africa in Motion has collated submissions and information on films, now presented in this database which we believe is one of the most extensive collections of African films. The database provides user-friendly search functions - searches can be undertaken by title, country, language, director, year, genre or theme, for example, Nollywood, Bongo films, animation, comedy, youth films, etc. Where available, film entries include contact information, thus enabling researchers, cinema programmers, festival curators and others to contact filmmakers or distributors to request access to a specific title. We believe that this public archive of African cinema is providing an invaluable resource as a centralised place to search for and locate African films. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Festival programmers and African cinema curators have regularly contacted AiM and ALC for information on films from specific filmmakers, countries, areas, etc, and while we have generally been very generous with sharing information, it has become easier and more user-friendly for us to share our knowledge with the wider public, scholars and professionals, to amen all this knowledge and information available very widely through this easily navigable database. |
| URL | https://www.africanfilmdatabase.com |
| Description | Africa in Motion Film Festival |
| Organisation | Africa in Motion Film Festival |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Dr Lizelle Bisschoff founded the Africa in Motion Film Festival in 2006 in Edinburgh's Filmhouse. In order to add a practice-based element to her research as a PhD student and in order to engage an audience in the UK/Scotland with the powerful nature of African cinema that she knew from her research, she set up AiM. Since then, each year AiM brings the best of African cinema to Scotland-making it possible for Scottish audiences to engage with African stories and industry professionals from the continent. AiM has established itself as a major annual event within the Scottish cultural calendar, whilst also maintaining an international profile as one of the leading African film platforms. The festival caters to a varied and diverse audience from all over Scotland, the UK and further afield. A core aspect of AiM's organisational work is its partnership development with various cultural and artistic networks and venues, with particular efforts made towards engaging the African diaspora community living in Scotland. Africa in Motion has grown from strength to strength over the past 12 years. AiM's statistics show that they have screened around 580 African films to over 35,000 people in Scotland since the inauguration of the festival in 2006. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The Africa's Lost Classics project was entirely integrated into the structure of the festival, in order to ensure a wide reach of the project to AiM's loyal and knowledgeable audiences, as well as making use of AiM's existing network of audiences, partners, and its established reputation. AiM also contributed to the programming of films, the transport of films, the festival enabled the research associate on the project to communicate with its partners and make use of its office space. |
| Impact | The festival enabled the screening of lost classics in Glasgow and in Edinburgh, at diverse locations and venues. |
| Start Year | 2006 |
| Description | Animation for children |
| Organisation | Animation Jam |
| Country | Ireland |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We collaborated with Animation Jam on designing a two-day intensive workshop at two primary schools in Edinburgh, St Cuthbert's and St David's, where we started from the screening of Bon Voyage Sim (Niger, 1966), which is the oldest sub-Saharan animated film by Moustapha Alassane, and encouraged the children to create their own story in the spirit of this film. The films are available on Animation Jam's vimeo page, here: https://vimeo.com/animationjam. In order to reach out to the schools in Edinburgh, we collaborated with IntoFilm, who publicised our intention to organise the workshops, and as a result we found more schools than we were able to accommodate, who were interested in the workshop. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Animation Jam is a professional and educational organisation that organises regular animation workshops in schools. Its workshop leader Jim prepared the workshop especially for us, as we asked him to focus on specific African films with their own style and narrative, and he researched the films in order to deliver the type of workshop we hoped for. The schools' collaboration consisted of freeing up two full days for Jim to come to the school and work very closely with the teachers and the children in order to achieve the goal of making a short animated film. Into Film was crucial for us as a partner in order to reach out to the schools in Edinburgh. This has taught us that these workshops are very valuable, that there are more schools than we anticipated interested in this material, and that IntoFilm is a very important partner in reaching out to schools. |
| Impact | St David's primary School animated film: https://vimeo.com/244023223 and the St Cuthbert's Primary School film: https://vimeo.com/247942946 |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Animation for children |
| Organisation | Into Film |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | We collaborated with Animation Jam on designing a two-day intensive workshop at two primary schools in Edinburgh, St Cuthbert's and St David's, where we started from the screening of Bon Voyage Sim (Niger, 1966), which is the oldest sub-Saharan animated film by Moustapha Alassane, and encouraged the children to create their own story in the spirit of this film. The films are available on Animation Jam's vimeo page, here: https://vimeo.com/animationjam. In order to reach out to the schools in Edinburgh, we collaborated with IntoFilm, who publicised our intention to organise the workshops, and as a result we found more schools than we were able to accommodate, who were interested in the workshop. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Animation Jam is a professional and educational organisation that organises regular animation workshops in schools. Its workshop leader Jim prepared the workshop especially for us, as we asked him to focus on specific African films with their own style and narrative, and he researched the films in order to deliver the type of workshop we hoped for. The schools' collaboration consisted of freeing up two full days for Jim to come to the school and work very closely with the teachers and the children in order to achieve the goal of making a short animated film. Into Film was crucial for us as a partner in order to reach out to the schools in Edinburgh. This has taught us that these workshops are very valuable, that there are more schools than we anticipated interested in this material, and that IntoFilm is a very important partner in reaching out to schools. |
| Impact | St David's primary School animated film: https://vimeo.com/244023223 and the St Cuthbert's Primary School film: https://vimeo.com/247942946 |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Animation for children |
| Organisation | St Cuthbert's RC Primary School |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We collaborated with Animation Jam on designing a two-day intensive workshop at two primary schools in Edinburgh, St Cuthbert's and St David's, where we started from the screening of Bon Voyage Sim (Niger, 1966), which is the oldest sub-Saharan animated film by Moustapha Alassane, and encouraged the children to create their own story in the spirit of this film. The films are available on Animation Jam's vimeo page, here: https://vimeo.com/animationjam. In order to reach out to the schools in Edinburgh, we collaborated with IntoFilm, who publicised our intention to organise the workshops, and as a result we found more schools than we were able to accommodate, who were interested in the workshop. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Animation Jam is a professional and educational organisation that organises regular animation workshops in schools. Its workshop leader Jim prepared the workshop especially for us, as we asked him to focus on specific African films with their own style and narrative, and he researched the films in order to deliver the type of workshop we hoped for. The schools' collaboration consisted of freeing up two full days for Jim to come to the school and work very closely with the teachers and the children in order to achieve the goal of making a short animated film. Into Film was crucial for us as a partner in order to reach out to the schools in Edinburgh. This has taught us that these workshops are very valuable, that there are more schools than we anticipated interested in this material, and that IntoFilm is a very important partner in reaching out to schools. |
| Impact | St David's primary School animated film: https://vimeo.com/244023223 and the St Cuthbert's Primary School film: https://vimeo.com/247942946 |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Exhibition: African Lost Classics in Context |
| Organisation | Africa in Motion Film Festival |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | The Africa's Lost Classics research team spent a considerable amount of time researching, writing and shaping the visuals and text for the exhibition organised in the framework of the project. This exhibition revisited the history of African cinema, and took in films that have never before been screened in the UK. It offered a look at the long history behind some of the world's masterpieces of African cinema. Twelve central displays provided information on the films' histories, political and cultural contexts, and restoration stories. A map connected visitors back to the geographical history of the film, and film clips showed the look and feel. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The exhibition was a large event in itself, and was integrated into the AiM festival as it consisted of three main elements: (1) a pre-exhibit interactive display at Kelvin Hall in Glasgow between 23 and 28 October culminating in a symposium, (2) a full-scale exhibition at WhiteSpace Gallery in Edinburgh between 28 October and 9 November, and (3) a small reflection of the exhibition in the corridor of the Filmhouse Cinema in Edinburgh during the film festival between 27 October to 5 November, to serve as link between the Filmhouse and the exhibition in WhiteSpace. These partners made available their space and visitors/audiences to the exhibition, and enabled us to reach people that may not usually be interested in going to the cinema: art lovers and artists, gallery visitors, and others saw the exhibitions as a direct result of their links to the spaces/galleries. |
| Impact | The output of this collaboration was the exhibition in itself. The content of the exhibition is as follows: the earliest film in the exhibition was De Voortrekkers, from 1916 South Africa. The most recent film was from 1999: Rage by Newton Aduaka. But the majority of films on display originated at the end of the 1960s and in the 1970s, a period of political, cultural and geographical change and renewal in World Cinema: The Third Cinema Manifesto shook up the status quo, as did many other New Waves worldwide, including the wave of New Arab Cinema. Films like Soleil O (1969), Al-Mumia (1969), Badou Boy (1970), Joe Bullet (1973), Fatma 75 (Tunisia, 1976), and Mueda, Memoria e Massacre (Mozambique, 1979) changed the face of filmmaking during a time of formal and contextual upheaval. They influenced what has come to world cinema screens since. Even animated films have undergone this political and cultural sea change, and women have become much more able to make their own films and assert their own voices in all genres. Geographically, this exhibition took in North as well as Southern Africa, East as well as West Africa. While it is impossible to be exhaustive, we endeavoured to make the exhibition representative. The central aim of this display was to revive lost histories, spaces and times, to open our eyes to the originality and urgency of African cinema, and to place it at the heart of our quest for a more diverse historiography. The materials of the exhibition are still owned by the project and are currently in storage. However, due to the GKE fund that we managed to obtain as a follow-on to the project, we are planning some further exhibitions, as part of the touring programme of this material. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Exhibition: African Lost Classics in Context |
| Organisation | InSitu London PLC |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | The Africa's Lost Classics research team spent a considerable amount of time researching, writing and shaping the visuals and text for the exhibition organised in the framework of the project. This exhibition revisited the history of African cinema, and took in films that have never before been screened in the UK. It offered a look at the long history behind some of the world's masterpieces of African cinema. Twelve central displays provided information on the films' histories, political and cultural contexts, and restoration stories. A map connected visitors back to the geographical history of the film, and film clips showed the look and feel. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The exhibition was a large event in itself, and was integrated into the AiM festival as it consisted of three main elements: (1) a pre-exhibit interactive display at Kelvin Hall in Glasgow between 23 and 28 October culminating in a symposium, (2) a full-scale exhibition at WhiteSpace Gallery in Edinburgh between 28 October and 9 November, and (3) a small reflection of the exhibition in the corridor of the Filmhouse Cinema in Edinburgh during the film festival between 27 October to 5 November, to serve as link between the Filmhouse and the exhibition in WhiteSpace. These partners made available their space and visitors/audiences to the exhibition, and enabled us to reach people that may not usually be interested in going to the cinema: art lovers and artists, gallery visitors, and others saw the exhibitions as a direct result of their links to the spaces/galleries. |
| Impact | The output of this collaboration was the exhibition in itself. The content of the exhibition is as follows: the earliest film in the exhibition was De Voortrekkers, from 1916 South Africa. The most recent film was from 1999: Rage by Newton Aduaka. But the majority of films on display originated at the end of the 1960s and in the 1970s, a period of political, cultural and geographical change and renewal in World Cinema: The Third Cinema Manifesto shook up the status quo, as did many other New Waves worldwide, including the wave of New Arab Cinema. Films like Soleil O (1969), Al-Mumia (1969), Badou Boy (1970), Joe Bullet (1973), Fatma 75 (Tunisia, 1976), and Mueda, Memoria e Massacre (Mozambique, 1979) changed the face of filmmaking during a time of formal and contextual upheaval. They influenced what has come to world cinema screens since. Even animated films have undergone this political and cultural sea change, and women have become much more able to make their own films and assert their own voices in all genres. Geographically, this exhibition took in North as well as Southern Africa, East as well as West Africa. While it is impossible to be exhaustive, we endeavoured to make the exhibition representative. The central aim of this display was to revive lost histories, spaces and times, to open our eyes to the originality and urgency of African cinema, and to place it at the heart of our quest for a more diverse historiography. The materials of the exhibition are still owned by the project and are currently in storage. However, due to the GKE fund that we managed to obtain as a follow-on to the project, we are planning some further exhibitions, as part of the touring programme of this material. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Exhibition: African Lost Classics in Context |
| Organisation | University of Glasgow |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The Africa's Lost Classics research team spent a considerable amount of time researching, writing and shaping the visuals and text for the exhibition organised in the framework of the project. This exhibition revisited the history of African cinema, and took in films that have never before been screened in the UK. It offered a look at the long history behind some of the world's masterpieces of African cinema. Twelve central displays provided information on the films' histories, political and cultural contexts, and restoration stories. A map connected visitors back to the geographical history of the film, and film clips showed the look and feel. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The exhibition was a large event in itself, and was integrated into the AiM festival as it consisted of three main elements: (1) a pre-exhibit interactive display at Kelvin Hall in Glasgow between 23 and 28 October culminating in a symposium, (2) a full-scale exhibition at WhiteSpace Gallery in Edinburgh between 28 October and 9 November, and (3) a small reflection of the exhibition in the corridor of the Filmhouse Cinema in Edinburgh during the film festival between 27 October to 5 November, to serve as link between the Filmhouse and the exhibition in WhiteSpace. These partners made available their space and visitors/audiences to the exhibition, and enabled us to reach people that may not usually be interested in going to the cinema: art lovers and artists, gallery visitors, and others saw the exhibitions as a direct result of their links to the spaces/galleries. |
| Impact | The output of this collaboration was the exhibition in itself. The content of the exhibition is as follows: the earliest film in the exhibition was De Voortrekkers, from 1916 South Africa. The most recent film was from 1999: Rage by Newton Aduaka. But the majority of films on display originated at the end of the 1960s and in the 1970s, a period of political, cultural and geographical change and renewal in World Cinema: The Third Cinema Manifesto shook up the status quo, as did many other New Waves worldwide, including the wave of New Arab Cinema. Films like Soleil O (1969), Al-Mumia (1969), Badou Boy (1970), Joe Bullet (1973), Fatma 75 (Tunisia, 1976), and Mueda, Memoria e Massacre (Mozambique, 1979) changed the face of filmmaking during a time of formal and contextual upheaval. They influenced what has come to world cinema screens since. Even animated films have undergone this political and cultural sea change, and women have become much more able to make their own films and assert their own voices in all genres. Geographically, this exhibition took in North as well as Southern Africa, East as well as West Africa. While it is impossible to be exhaustive, we endeavoured to make the exhibition representative. The central aim of this display was to revive lost histories, spaces and times, to open our eyes to the originality and urgency of African cinema, and to place it at the heart of our quest for a more diverse historiography. The materials of the exhibition are still owned by the project and are currently in storage. However, due to the GKE fund that we managed to obtain as a follow-on to the project, we are planning some further exhibitions, as part of the touring programme of this material. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Exhibition: African Lost Classics in Context |
| Organisation | White Space Gallery |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | The Africa's Lost Classics research team spent a considerable amount of time researching, writing and shaping the visuals and text for the exhibition organised in the framework of the project. This exhibition revisited the history of African cinema, and took in films that have never before been screened in the UK. It offered a look at the long history behind some of the world's masterpieces of African cinema. Twelve central displays provided information on the films' histories, political and cultural contexts, and restoration stories. A map connected visitors back to the geographical history of the film, and film clips showed the look and feel. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The exhibition was a large event in itself, and was integrated into the AiM festival as it consisted of three main elements: (1) a pre-exhibit interactive display at Kelvin Hall in Glasgow between 23 and 28 October culminating in a symposium, (2) a full-scale exhibition at WhiteSpace Gallery in Edinburgh between 28 October and 9 November, and (3) a small reflection of the exhibition in the corridor of the Filmhouse Cinema in Edinburgh during the film festival between 27 October to 5 November, to serve as link between the Filmhouse and the exhibition in WhiteSpace. These partners made available their space and visitors/audiences to the exhibition, and enabled us to reach people that may not usually be interested in going to the cinema: art lovers and artists, gallery visitors, and others saw the exhibitions as a direct result of their links to the spaces/galleries. |
| Impact | The output of this collaboration was the exhibition in itself. The content of the exhibition is as follows: the earliest film in the exhibition was De Voortrekkers, from 1916 South Africa. The most recent film was from 1999: Rage by Newton Aduaka. But the majority of films on display originated at the end of the 1960s and in the 1970s, a period of political, cultural and geographical change and renewal in World Cinema: The Third Cinema Manifesto shook up the status quo, as did many other New Waves worldwide, including the wave of New Arab Cinema. Films like Soleil O (1969), Al-Mumia (1969), Badou Boy (1970), Joe Bullet (1973), Fatma 75 (Tunisia, 1976), and Mueda, Memoria e Massacre (Mozambique, 1979) changed the face of filmmaking during a time of formal and contextual upheaval. They influenced what has come to world cinema screens since. Even animated films have undergone this political and cultural sea change, and women have become much more able to make their own films and assert their own voices in all genres. Geographically, this exhibition took in North as well as Southern Africa, East as well as West Africa. While it is impossible to be exhaustive, we endeavoured to make the exhibition representative. The central aim of this display was to revive lost histories, spaces and times, to open our eyes to the originality and urgency of African cinema, and to place it at the heart of our quest for a more diverse historiography. The materials of the exhibition are still owned by the project and are currently in storage. However, due to the GKE fund that we managed to obtain as a follow-on to the project, we are planning some further exhibitions, as part of the touring programme of this material. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | TANO |
| Organisation | Africa in Motion Film Festival |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | TANO is a consortium of five African film festivals in the UK, who work together on bringing the best of African cinema to UK screens and audiences. In 2017 these festivals collaborated on screening lost classic films, and organising events around the concept of Lost Classics. In addition to the screenings in Scotland, we toured the ALC films across the UK, at the four other African film festivals, in London, Cambridge, Wales and Bristol. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Apart from Cambridge, which struggled with funding issues this year, each of the partner festivals screened five classic films, at a variety of locations: either at their regular venues or at pop-up events in spaces like, e.g. South London Gallery, The Castle Cinema, SOAS, Rich Mix (London); Watershed, Arnolfini (Bristol), Butetown Community Centre, Temple of Peace, Pontio (Wales). Each time we ensured the film was accompanied by an appropriate introduction or a discussion after the screening in order to contextualise the film in African cinema history. |
| Impact | List of films + Box office results: Scotland - Edinburgh Filmhouse: Trances + Aita 39 Edinburgh College of Arst: Tahar Cheriaa + The Sandwich 15 Filmhouse: Mueda 25 Dominion: Al-Mumia 35 Filmhouse: Fatma 75 44 Woodland Creatures: Animation (adults) 30 Storytelling Centre: Animation (kids) 53 Filmhouse: De Voortrekkers 70 Filmhouse: Mossane 50 Scotland - Glasgow Glendale Women's Cafe: Women with Open Eyes 12 Symposium 40 Glasgow Film Theatre: Soleil O 66 Glasgow School of Art: Badou Boy 80 GMAC: Rage + Jemima and Johnny 15 Glasgow Women's Library : Flame 34 TOTAL SCOTLAND 608 London Rich Mix: Kukurantumi 47 Ritzy: Rage 27 South London Gallery: Fatma 75 75 School of Oriental and African Studies: Mueda 42 Castle Cinema: De Voortrekkers TBC TOTAL LONDON 191 + Bristol Arnolfini: Touki Bouki + Badou Boy 36 Cube Cinema: Joe Bullet + Shaft 33 Watershed: Rage 32 Watershed: Soleil O 73 Aardman Studios: Animations 25 Big Screen: Animations public, outdoors TOTAL BRISTOL 199 + Wales Temple of Peace: Flame 25 School: Rage 10 Butetown Community Centre: Women with Open Eyes 25 Pontio: Chronicle of the Years of Embers 8 Magic Lantern: Trances 21 TOTAL WALES 89 |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | TANO |
| Organisation | Bristol Festivals |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | TANO is a consortium of five African film festivals in the UK, who work together on bringing the best of African cinema to UK screens and audiences. In 2017 these festivals collaborated on screening lost classic films, and organising events around the concept of Lost Classics. In addition to the screenings in Scotland, we toured the ALC films across the UK, at the four other African film festivals, in London, Cambridge, Wales and Bristol. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Apart from Cambridge, which struggled with funding issues this year, each of the partner festivals screened five classic films, at a variety of locations: either at their regular venues or at pop-up events in spaces like, e.g. South London Gallery, The Castle Cinema, SOAS, Rich Mix (London); Watershed, Arnolfini (Bristol), Butetown Community Centre, Temple of Peace, Pontio (Wales). Each time we ensured the film was accompanied by an appropriate introduction or a discussion after the screening in order to contextualise the film in African cinema history. |
| Impact | List of films + Box office results: Scotland - Edinburgh Filmhouse: Trances + Aita 39 Edinburgh College of Arst: Tahar Cheriaa + The Sandwich 15 Filmhouse: Mueda 25 Dominion: Al-Mumia 35 Filmhouse: Fatma 75 44 Woodland Creatures: Animation (adults) 30 Storytelling Centre: Animation (kids) 53 Filmhouse: De Voortrekkers 70 Filmhouse: Mossane 50 Scotland - Glasgow Glendale Women's Cafe: Women with Open Eyes 12 Symposium 40 Glasgow Film Theatre: Soleil O 66 Glasgow School of Art: Badou Boy 80 GMAC: Rage + Jemima and Johnny 15 Glasgow Women's Library : Flame 34 TOTAL SCOTLAND 608 London Rich Mix: Kukurantumi 47 Ritzy: Rage 27 South London Gallery: Fatma 75 75 School of Oriental and African Studies: Mueda 42 Castle Cinema: De Voortrekkers TBC TOTAL LONDON 191 + Bristol Arnolfini: Touki Bouki + Badou Boy 36 Cube Cinema: Joe Bullet + Shaft 33 Watershed: Rage 32 Watershed: Soleil O 73 Aardman Studios: Animations 25 Big Screen: Animations public, outdoors TOTAL BRISTOL 199 + Wales Temple of Peace: Flame 25 School: Rage 10 Butetown Community Centre: Women with Open Eyes 25 Pontio: Chronicle of the Years of Embers 8 Magic Lantern: Trances 21 TOTAL WALES 89 |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | TANO |
| Organisation | Royal African Society |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | TANO is a consortium of five African film festivals in the UK, who work together on bringing the best of African cinema to UK screens and audiences. In 2017 these festivals collaborated on screening lost classic films, and organising events around the concept of Lost Classics. In addition to the screenings in Scotland, we toured the ALC films across the UK, at the four other African film festivals, in London, Cambridge, Wales and Bristol. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Apart from Cambridge, which struggled with funding issues this year, each of the partner festivals screened five classic films, at a variety of locations: either at their regular venues or at pop-up events in spaces like, e.g. South London Gallery, The Castle Cinema, SOAS, Rich Mix (London); Watershed, Arnolfini (Bristol), Butetown Community Centre, Temple of Peace, Pontio (Wales). Each time we ensured the film was accompanied by an appropriate introduction or a discussion after the screening in order to contextualise the film in African cinema history. |
| Impact | List of films + Box office results: Scotland - Edinburgh Filmhouse: Trances + Aita 39 Edinburgh College of Arst: Tahar Cheriaa + The Sandwich 15 Filmhouse: Mueda 25 Dominion: Al-Mumia 35 Filmhouse: Fatma 75 44 Woodland Creatures: Animation (adults) 30 Storytelling Centre: Animation (kids) 53 Filmhouse: De Voortrekkers 70 Filmhouse: Mossane 50 Scotland - Glasgow Glendale Women's Cafe: Women with Open Eyes 12 Symposium 40 Glasgow Film Theatre: Soleil O 66 Glasgow School of Art: Badou Boy 80 GMAC: Rage + Jemima and Johnny 15 Glasgow Women's Library : Flame 34 TOTAL SCOTLAND 608 London Rich Mix: Kukurantumi 47 Ritzy: Rage 27 South London Gallery: Fatma 75 75 School of Oriental and African Studies: Mueda 42 Castle Cinema: De Voortrekkers TBC TOTAL LONDON 191 + Bristol Arnolfini: Touki Bouki + Badou Boy 36 Cube Cinema: Joe Bullet + Shaft 33 Watershed: Rage 32 Watershed: Soleil O 73 Aardman Studios: Animations 25 Big Screen: Animations public, outdoors TOTAL BRISTOL 199 + Wales Temple of Peace: Flame 25 School: Rage 10 Butetown Community Centre: Women with Open Eyes 25 Pontio: Chronicle of the Years of Embers 8 Magic Lantern: Trances 21 TOTAL WALES 89 |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | TANO |
| Organisation | University of Cambridge |
| Department | University of Cambridge, BBSRC IGF Drosophila Genomics Facility |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | TANO is a consortium of five African film festivals in the UK, who work together on bringing the best of African cinema to UK screens and audiences. In 2017 these festivals collaborated on screening lost classic films, and organising events around the concept of Lost Classics. In addition to the screenings in Scotland, we toured the ALC films across the UK, at the four other African film festivals, in London, Cambridge, Wales and Bristol. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Apart from Cambridge, which struggled with funding issues this year, each of the partner festivals screened five classic films, at a variety of locations: either at their regular venues or at pop-up events in spaces like, e.g. South London Gallery, The Castle Cinema, SOAS, Rich Mix (London); Watershed, Arnolfini (Bristol), Butetown Community Centre, Temple of Peace, Pontio (Wales). Each time we ensured the film was accompanied by an appropriate introduction or a discussion after the screening in order to contextualise the film in African cinema history. |
| Impact | List of films + Box office results: Scotland - Edinburgh Filmhouse: Trances + Aita 39 Edinburgh College of Arst: Tahar Cheriaa + The Sandwich 15 Filmhouse: Mueda 25 Dominion: Al-Mumia 35 Filmhouse: Fatma 75 44 Woodland Creatures: Animation (adults) 30 Storytelling Centre: Animation (kids) 53 Filmhouse: De Voortrekkers 70 Filmhouse: Mossane 50 Scotland - Glasgow Glendale Women's Cafe: Women with Open Eyes 12 Symposium 40 Glasgow Film Theatre: Soleil O 66 Glasgow School of Art: Badou Boy 80 GMAC: Rage + Jemima and Johnny 15 Glasgow Women's Library : Flame 34 TOTAL SCOTLAND 608 London Rich Mix: Kukurantumi 47 Ritzy: Rage 27 South London Gallery: Fatma 75 75 School of Oriental and African Studies: Mueda 42 Castle Cinema: De Voortrekkers TBC TOTAL LONDON 191 + Bristol Arnolfini: Touki Bouki + Badou Boy 36 Cube Cinema: Joe Bullet + Shaft 33 Watershed: Rage 32 Watershed: Soleil O 73 Aardman Studios: Animations 25 Big Screen: Animations public, outdoors TOTAL BRISTOL 199 + Wales Temple of Peace: Flame 25 School: Rage 10 Butetown Community Centre: Women with Open Eyes 25 Pontio: Chronicle of the Years of Embers 8 Magic Lantern: Trances 21 TOTAL WALES 89 |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | TANO |
| Organisation | Watch Africa, Wales |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | TANO is a consortium of five African film festivals in the UK, who work together on bringing the best of African cinema to UK screens and audiences. In 2017 these festivals collaborated on screening lost classic films, and organising events around the concept of Lost Classics. In addition to the screenings in Scotland, we toured the ALC films across the UK, at the four other African film festivals, in London, Cambridge, Wales and Bristol. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Apart from Cambridge, which struggled with funding issues this year, each of the partner festivals screened five classic films, at a variety of locations: either at their regular venues or at pop-up events in spaces like, e.g. South London Gallery, The Castle Cinema, SOAS, Rich Mix (London); Watershed, Arnolfini (Bristol), Butetown Community Centre, Temple of Peace, Pontio (Wales). Each time we ensured the film was accompanied by an appropriate introduction or a discussion after the screening in order to contextualise the film in African cinema history. |
| Impact | List of films + Box office results: Scotland - Edinburgh Filmhouse: Trances + Aita 39 Edinburgh College of Arst: Tahar Cheriaa + The Sandwich 15 Filmhouse: Mueda 25 Dominion: Al-Mumia 35 Filmhouse: Fatma 75 44 Woodland Creatures: Animation (adults) 30 Storytelling Centre: Animation (kids) 53 Filmhouse: De Voortrekkers 70 Filmhouse: Mossane 50 Scotland - Glasgow Glendale Women's Cafe: Women with Open Eyes 12 Symposium 40 Glasgow Film Theatre: Soleil O 66 Glasgow School of Art: Badou Boy 80 GMAC: Rage + Jemima and Johnny 15 Glasgow Women's Library : Flame 34 TOTAL SCOTLAND 608 London Rich Mix: Kukurantumi 47 Ritzy: Rage 27 South London Gallery: Fatma 75 75 School of Oriental and African Studies: Mueda 42 Castle Cinema: De Voortrekkers TBC TOTAL LONDON 191 + Bristol Arnolfini: Touki Bouki + Badou Boy 36 Cube Cinema: Joe Bullet + Shaft 33 Watershed: Rage 32 Watershed: Soleil O 73 Aardman Studios: Animations 25 Big Screen: Animations public, outdoors TOTAL BRISTOL 199 + Wales Temple of Peace: Flame 25 School: Rage 10 Butetown Community Centre: Women with Open Eyes 25 Pontio: Chronicle of the Years of Embers 8 Magic Lantern: Trances 21 TOTAL WALES 89 |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Title | Fatma 75 |
| Description | Fatma 75, a Tunisian film and an early powerful feminist essay film, was made in 1976 and immediately banned by the government. The film was smuggled out of Tunisia to the Netherlands, and received Dutch subtitles. Subsequently, since 2006, the film also exists with French subtitles, but it has never before been screened in an anglophone context. ALC invested in the film's preservation, restoration, subtitling and digitisation, and then screened the film in its English-speaking world premiere in Edinburgh and London in November 2017. in collaboration with the filmmaker the film with its English subtitles is now the property of the project for a limited amount of time, until 2020. We plan to distribute it more widely, where all screening rights will be paid to the filmmaker directly. |
| IP Reference | |
| Protection | Copyrighted (e.g. software) |
| Year Protection Granted | 2017 |
| Licensed | No |
| Impact | Feminist film festivals and African film festivals as well as a few large-size international film festivals have requested the right to screen the film in 2018. |
| Title | Flame |
| Description | Flame, made by Ingrid Sinclair and Simon Bright in Zimbabwe, only existed on 35mm in South Africa and on a few bad-quality DVDs that were owned by the producer. ALC invested in its digitisation, and created a DCP version of the film, which has ensured its longer life. The DCP is now owned by ALC, and all screening opportunities will be communicated with the filmmaker and producer, so that further screenings will be paid directly to them. We retain the right to screen it across the UK until 2020. |
| IP Reference | |
| Protection | Copyrighted (e.g. software) |
| Year Protection Granted | 2017 |
| Licensed | No |
| Impact | International, feminist and African festivals have already requested the opportunity to screen the film to their audiences. |
| Title | Mossane |
| Description | Mossane is a film by pioneering African filmmaker Safi Faye. It has been lost and does not exist with English subtitles, thus limiting its distribution completely. The ALC project funded and initiated the subtitling and digitisation of the film, and consequently received the authority of the filmmaker to distribute the film across the English-speaking world. We have obtained the temporary rights to the film for 2 years: until 2020. We plan to distribute it more widely, where all screening rights will be paid to the filmmaker directly. |
| IP Reference | |
| Protection | Copyrighted (e.g. software) |
| Year Protection Granted | 2017 |
| Licensed | No |
| Impact | A large number of academics and film professionals such as distributors and festival programmers have requested the film to screen it at their events. |
| Description | 2 Animation Workshops in Edinburgh Primary Schools |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | ALC teamed up with IntoFilm Scotland and Animation Jam workshop organisers, to reach two primary schools in Scotland in order to deliver two animation workshops that engage with classic African animation films. We created an opportunity for P6 or P7 classes for two free 2-day long filmmaking animation workshops. Animation Jam delivered the workshop, and the project leaders ensured that the workshop ties into the Curriculum. The workshops took place in St Davids and St Cuthberts School in Edinburgh in December 2017, and with around 40 primary school students and three teachers reached, the films are now available online. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://vimeo.com/animationjam |
| Description | Afrika Eye: Soleil O discussion on Third Cinema in Bristol |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Mauritanian director Med Hondo created this experimental masterpiece in 1969, about a man newly arrived in France. The film details the systematic inequality in labour, housing, and French society overall, but is avant-garde, fast-moving, and at times surreal. The film first screened at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival, and screened again at Cannes in 2017, celebrating its restoration by Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation. Soleil O is important for its anti-colonial urgency, and is celebrated as central to the history of African film. This is one of the first chances to view it in the UK. A panel discussion after the film was hosted by the festival, and featured African film scholars Dr Imruh Baraka and Dr Stefanie Van de Peer in a discussion of the film in its context of Third Cinema. The audience asked questions about the film, about political cinema in the 1960s and 1970s, and about the restoration by the World Cinema Foundation and the existence of the film. Audiences also requested opportunities to screen the film at other occasions and venues. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.watershed.co.uk/whatson/8579/soleil-africas-lost-classics/ |
| Description | BBC 4: The Film Programme |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Dr Lizelle Bisschoff spoke at length about the Africa's Lost Classics project. She mentioned the story of discovery of archive detective work, in particular the story behind the South African film Joe Bullet, and the restoration of three women's films Fatma 75 by Selma Baccar, Mossane by Safi Faye and Flame by Ingrid Sinclair. The programme focuses on women's films in Africa, and on the difficulties women filmmakers face with regards to censorship, funding and production. Dr Bisschoff then engages with the World Cinema Foundation's work on restoring African classics and Martin Scorsese's opinion that film knowledge needs to be expanded to include world cinema including African cinema. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b098nc6w |
| Description | CPD workshop for teachers |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | A workshop for teachers in Glasgow, to present the educational materials created as part of the Africa's Lost Classics project, in Oct 2018. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Curating the Global Film Archive |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Complementing the Africa's Lost Classics programme and the exhibition African Film: Looking Back Through the Lens, we hosted a symposium entitled Curating the Global Film Archive on Saturday 28 October 2017, at the Moving Image Archive at Kelvin Hall. Inviting scholars, archivists, filmmakers and restorers from around the world to Glasgow for a day of dialogue and discussion on what the archive contributes to film history and the future of film, we placed African cinema at the centre of the global film archive, while providing a context of worldwide archival curation and research. Ten scholars and practitioners presented their work to an audience of 50 international participants. They were from a variety of universities, organisations and industry related institutions, and spoke to an audience of scholars, practitioners and one another. Discussions focused on the ethics of restoration, ownership of old and lost film materials, and the identity of the voices who reach an audience. We also screened a film by Piotr Cieplak, on the use of photography as a tool for memorialisation in Rwanda. The film engaged the audience with similar questions on representation, ownership and memorialisation and resulted in a lively debate after the screening of the film. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/event/179 |
| Description | Exhibition - African Film: Looking Back through the Lens |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | We curated a large exhibition entitled African Film: Looking Back Through the Lens at three locations in Glasgow and Edinburgh. This exhibition aimed revive lost histories, spaces and times, and included key classic films accompanied by posters, contextual information and film clips. A pre-exhibit interactive display at Kelvin Hall in Glasgow took place between 23 and 28 October 2017. A full-scale exhibition opened with a wine reception at Whitespace Gallery in Edinburgh on Monday 30 October 2017 and ran until 9 November 2017. Finally, a photography-based exhibition was displayed in Filmhouse Cafe Bar in Edinburgh during the film festival between 27 October to 5 November 2017, and served as a link between the Filmhouse screenings and the exhibition in Whitespace. Audiences were interested in film as art, learning about the lost history of African cinema, and about the histories and cultures of Africa itself. These exhibitions offered new perspectives on the lives of African films. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/event/108 |
| Description | Feature on classic animation films in Animation Magazine |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Animation Magazine published a feature on the animated film programme that was part of the Lost Classics tour throughout the UK. The title of the article was "Rare & Pioneering African Animation Shines in UK Film Tour". |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.animationmagazine.net/events/rare-pioneering-african-animation-shines-in-uk-film-tour/ |
| Description | Film screening |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Film screening of one of the Lost Classics recovered by the project, as part of the Brighton Open Colour film season, in February 2019. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | http://www.opencolour.co.uk/html/pastscreenings.html |
| Description | Film screening |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A screening Fatma 75 hosted by feminist film festival Femspectives, in Glasgow in February 2019 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://femspectives.com/event/fatma-75-north-african-food-with-africa-in-motion/ |
| Description | Mark Cousins article in Sight & Sound |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | In November 2017 Sight & Sound published an article on Africa's Lost Classics and the project, written by Mark Cousins, a filmmaker, reviewer and critic. He fully endorsed the project and praised the "dogged researchers" as well as Dr Lizelle Bisschoff for her work on finding, restoring, subtitling and screening so many and such a diverse range of classics from the African continent. Sight and Sound has 19k+ paid subscribers; 93k Twitter followers; 54k Facebook followers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/comment/africa-lost-classics-uk-tour-open-yo... |
| Description | Panel discussion |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Attendance at Melbourne International Film Festival in August 2018, to introduce film screenings of African classic films, and taking part in a panel discussion on African cinema. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://miff.com.au/african-film-rediscovered |
| Description | Panel discussion |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Attendance of London Feminist Film Festival in August 2018 and taking part in panel discussion after screening of Fatma 75, a film restored as part of the Africa's Lost Classics project, and selected by the London Feminist Film Festival as the opening film for their 2018 festival. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://londonfeministfilmfestival.com/lfff-archive/lfff-2018/lfff-2018-programme/ |
| Description | Screening of Badou Boy (Senegal, 1970) at Glasgow School of Art |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Senegalese maverick filmmaker Djibril Diop Mambéty is still regarded as one of the most important African filmmakers of all time: a visionary both politically and creatively. But as a lone dissenter, allergic to institutional obedience, his work was deliberately 'lost' by those in power. Rarely seen yet often talked about, the film, like its creator, has been an enigma. This screening of Badou Boy was a rare opportunity to see the film in the UK. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/event/175 |
| Description | Screening of Chronicle of the Years of Embers (Algeria, 1975) at Pontio in Bangor |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Winner of the prestigious Palm d'Or at Cannes in 1975, Chronicle of the Years of Embers portrays Algeria's struggle for independence from French colonial rule. The story follows a peasant's migration from his drought-stricken village to his eventual participation with the Algerian resistance movement, just prior to the outbreak of the Algerian War of Independence. Filmed in rich CinemaScope, this stunning epic from director Mohamed Lakhdar-Hamina is one of world cinema's rarely-seen gems. The film was screened in Wales, in collaboration with Watch Africa film festival. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/event/201 |
| Description | Screening of De Voortrekkers (South Africa 1916) at Filmhouse Edinburgh and at Castle Cinema in London |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This 1916 epic film was one of the first South African dramatic film productions, and is the oldest surviving South African feature film. It tells the story of the Boers' Great Trek, concluding with a reconstruction of the horrific 1838 Battle of Blood River, where a few hundred armed Afrikaners defeated several thousand Zulus. It has been compared to the equally contentious and racist Birth of a Nation, as it emphasises the common point of view between Britons and Afrikaners and the 'savagery' of the native peoples. While we recognise its problematic politics, as the first film from South Africa it has its place in the Lost Classics programme. The silent film screening was accompanied by acclaimed Nigerian composer Juwon Ogungbe's original score, performed live by the musician. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/event/182 |
| Description | Screening of Fatma 75 (Tunisia, 1976) at Filmhouse Edinburgh and at South London Gallery in London |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Fatma 75 by Selma Baccar is a pioneering film from Tunisia: it is the first non-fiction film by a woman from Tunisia, a feminist essay-film, and the first in a series of powerful films about strong female figures in the country. The film was made in the UN International Women's Year, 1975, and has long been recognised as one of the most important films from North Africa, but has never officially been seen before due to censorship. Curiously, it was only ever screened once, in the Netherlands. Now, in collaboration with Quinta Gammarth in Tunis, ALC has restored and subtitled this rare gem, and made it available to its audiences for a UK premiere in Edinburgh and London. The filmmaker, Selma Baccar, was in attendance for a Q&A after the screening in Edinburgh. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/event/165 |
| Description | Screening of Flame (Zimbabwe, 1996) at Glasgow Women's Library and Temple of Peace in Cardiff |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The Africa's Lost Classics project has initiated and enabled the restoration and subtitling of three very important women's films that have been lost, forgotten or neglected: Flame by Ingrid Sinclair (1996) is one of them. Flame was the first Zimbabwean film since independence and is a tribute to the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army's female guerrillas. The film also serves as a critique for post-independence Zimbabwe, and Mugabe's rule. Filmmaker Ingrid Sinclair and producer Simon Bright were in attendance to talk to the audience after the screening. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/event/149 |
| Description | Screening of Joe Bullet (South Africa 1973) in Bristol and Edinburgh |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Produced in 1973, Louis de Witt's South African blaxploitation crime film Joe Bullet was one of the first films in the country to feature an all black cast. In 1973 South Africa was still in the grips of apartheid and so after just two public screenings in the Johannesburg township of Soweto the film was banned by the government and not seen again for over forty years. Now, Joe Bullet has been digitally restored and is finally available, courtesy of the Gravel Road film restoration project. The film tells the story of a mysterious gangster who starts sabotaging soccer team The Eagles' chance at winning the upcoming championship final. In the criminal underworld of soccer, only our eponymous hero Joe Bullet can save the championship. Audiences who wanted to hear more about the restoration, attended the symposium on 28 October at Kelvin Hall, to find out about the process from the restorer himself. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/event/196 |
| Description | Screening of Kukurantumi (Ghana 1983) in Rich Mix in London |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | In this revealing African comedy-drama that contrasts the hectic life in Accra, the capital of Ghana, with the relative peace of Kukurantumi, a rural town, a truck driver makes runs between the two locations with few problems until he is forced to replace his truck. In order to raise the money to get a new vehicle, he sells some stolen watches and promises his daughter in marriage to a rich merchant. Rebelling against this fate, the daughter runs off to Accra with her boyfriend -- but then nothing turns out quite like she had planned, and the rich merchant looks better with each passing day. This classic film was screened at Rich Mix in London to an enthusiastic mixed audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/event/202 |
| Description | Screening of Mossane (Senegal, 1994) at Filmhouse in Edinburgh |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | In this stunning Senegalese drama, a beautiful village girl finds herself torn between potential husbands, and between tradition and modernity. Mossane is an extraordinary beauty. She is in love with Fara, a young student, but she has been betrothed to another. She dislikes her rich fiancee, Diogoye, but he sends money and gifts to the villagers. Unable to follow her dreams and bound by tradition, Mossane takes action and tragedy ensues. Safi Faye was the first black woman from sub-Saharan Africa to direct a fiction feature film in 1975, and is thus the female pioneer of African cinema, on a par with her compatriots Ousmane Sembène and Djibril Diop Mambety. Mossane was first screened in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes in 1996 but had never been screened in the UK. ALC restored the film in collaboration with Titra Film in France. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/event/181 |
| Description | Screening of Mueda, Memória e Massacre (Mozambique, 1979) at Filmhouse in Edinburgh and at SOAS in London |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Lost until 2009, when it was rediscovered in Maputo's archives, Mueda, Memória e Massacre by Ruy Guerra is a central work of Cinema Novo. Generally considered to be the first fiction feature film from independent Mozambique, it is a masterpiece of anti-colonial memory. The film shows a public reenactment staged by non-professionals of the massacre in Mueda (a city in northern Mozambique) carried out by the Portuguese in 1960. This event triggered the armed resistance in Mozambique and was remembered regularly by means of popular reenactments. Catarina Simao, Portuguese artist, curator and filmmaker, worked with Ruy Guerra and Arsenal (Institut für Film und Videokunst) in Berlin on restoring the film. She was in attendance at the screening to introduce the film and also presented her work at the exhibition and at the symposium. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/event/153 |
| Description | Screening of Rage (1999) and Jemima and Johnny (1966) in London, Bristol and Glasgow |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Rage follows three aspiring musicians in London who want to cut their first hip-hop record. London is a melting-pot of cultures, classes and races. Jamie, Godwin and Thomas have been friends for a long time, but tensions that have survived under the skin come to the surface as they realise that growing up is difficult in a racist society, and that they need resources to make their dream come true. Rage is an early film by celebrated Nigerian director Newton Aduaka, made while he was living in London, and a comment on issues of racial integration and belonging in a British context. The film was preceded by a screening of Jemima and Johnny: Having recently moved to London from Jamaica, little Jemima is found on the street by street-wise Johnny, a five-year-old boy from the area. He takes her on a tour of the neighborhood. Despite their parents' worry, the film offers a refreshingly optimistic window into a pocket of 1960s London. Lionel Ngakane was one of South Africa's pioneering and most celebrated black directors, and went into exile in Britain in the early 1950s, escaping South Africa's apartheid regime. Jemima and Johnny, inspired by the 1958 Notting Hill race riots, was his first short film. Both films deal with race relations in the UK and specifically in London. The films were screened at The Ritzy in London, Watershed in Bristol and at GMAC in Glasgow and as such reached a varied audience across the UK. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/event/163 |
| Description | Screening of Soleil O (Mauritania 1969) at GFT in Glasgow and Watershed in Bristol |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | In West Africa, black men line up before a white priest for baptism and renaming. In France, colonial blacks, encouraged by propaganda, arrive to seek a better life. What they find is unemployment, unacceptable living conditions, blatant racism, and bureaucratic indifference. Searching for a new cinematic language, Mauritanian director Med Hondo eschewed conventional narrative forms in this experimental masterpiece. A scathing attack on colonialism, the film is also a shocking exposé of racism and a brutal indictment of Western capitalist values, as relevant today as it was in the 1960s. The film first screened at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival, and screened again at Cannes in 2017, after its restoration by Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation at the Cineteca di Bologna. Soleil O is as important as Battle of Algiers in its anti-colonial urgency, and is rightly celebrated by scholars and critics as occupying a central place in the history of African film. After the recent restoration of the film, this was one of the first chances to view it in the UK. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/event/177 |
| Description | Screening of Touki Bouki (Senegal, 1973) at Arnolfini in Bristol |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This classic of African cinema, made by rebel filmmaker Mambety in 1973, was shown at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, and ever since then has experienced a cult classic reputation. Djibril Diop Mambéty is still regarded as one of the most important African filmmakers of all time: a visionary, an aesthete, a political animal. But as a lone dissenter, allergic to institutional obedience, his work was deliberately 'lost' by those in power. The film was restored in 2008 at Cineteca di Bologna / L'Immagine Ritrovata Laboratory by Martin Scorsese's project World Cinema Foundation. Mory, a charismatic cowherd who drives a motorcycle mounted with a bull-horned skull, and Anta, a female student, meet and fall in love in Senegal's capital Dakar. Alienated and tired of life, they dream of going to Paris and come up with different schemes to raise money for the trip. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/event/204 |
| Description | Screening of Trances (Morocco, 1981) at Filmhouse in Edinburgh and at The Magic Lantern in Tywyn (Wales) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Moroccan band Nass El Ghiwane is the subject of this captivating music documentary. As storytellers connected to political theatre, the band became an international sensation, referred to by music critics as the 'Rolling Stones of North Africa'. With political lyrics and sublime acoustic sound, they draw on the trance tradition. Both a concert movie and an audiovisual experiment, this film is a work of cinematic poetry. Trances was the first film to be restored by Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Fund. Plus short Aïta by Izza Génini (Morocco 1988) who produced Trances and made sure its restoration was made possible. Aita is a short film about a female travelling troubadour. Génini produced Trances and went on to become a prolific music documentary maker. Both filmmakers will be in attendance for a Q&A after the screenings. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/event/126 |
| Description | Screening of Women with Open Eyes in Glendale Women's Cafe in Glasgow and at Butetown Community Centre in Cardiff |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A film about a variety of women's rights, in Femmes Aux Yeux Ouverts, award-winning Togolese filmmaker Anne-Laure Folly presents portraits of contemporary African women from four West African nations: Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal and Benin. The film shows how African women are speaking out and organizing around five key issues: marital rights, reproductive health, female genital mutilation, women's role in the economy and political rights. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/event/203 |
| Description | Screening of classic African animated films |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | We screened a number of classic African animated films across venues in Scotland, Bristol, Wales and London. The films were: Happy Travels, Sim (1966), La Femme Mariée aux trots homies (1993), La Princesse Yennega (1984), National defence (1940), Toad Visits his In-Laws (1991). These films and their screenings gained some considerable interest in the media, as they had never before been seen in public in the UK. We based a teaching resource on these films, which has reached some primary schools teachers already, and we based two workshops on animation on these films as well, which took place in Edinburgh. There were public screenings of these films on the Big Screen in Bristol and in Wales, and a screening event at the Aardman studios in Bristol as well. The result of our work on these films is that we will tour them more widely around the UK in 2018. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/event/187 |
| Description | Screening: Al Mumia (Egypt, 1969) at Dominion in Edinburgh |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The film was screened at a red carpet event in Edinburgh's oldest cinema. Around 50 audience members enjoyed the red carpet treatment and experienced the screening of a masterpiece of Egyptian cinema history, a film very different from the stereotypical musical melodramas people know from Egypt. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/special-programmes/africas-lost-classics/event/155 |
| Description | The National: interview with Stefanie Van de Peer |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Dr Stefanie Van de Peer was interviewed by The National regarding the Lost Classics programme screening in Scotland. Focus of the article was on the restoration and subtitling of women's films for the festival. The interview was published on 16 October 2017, the week before the Africa in Motion festival, where most of the films were screened, started. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/comment/africa-lost-classics-uk-tour-open-yo... |
| Description | Website |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | A website created to document the Africa's Lost Classics project for future use |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2007,2019 |
| URL | https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/africas-lost-classics/ |