All the Cinemas of the World: Spotlight on Africa

Moving into day five, the Tous les Cinémas du Monde program turns to recent and notable film production in Africa. The purpose of the program is to present viewers with a sampling of motion-picture production from all over the world on a country-by-country basis. Today, four films are featured:
Mo & Me by Roger Mills and Murad Rayani, Un Matin Bonne Heure (Early in the Morning) by Gahité Fofana, O Herói by
Zézé Gamboa, and Il va pleuvoir sur Conakry (It’s Going to
Rain on Conakry) by Cheick Fantamady Camara. These films all deal with questions such as: How can a child
grow up in wartime? When peace returns, how do you recover your normal attitudes? How can a person make his or her way between tradition and modern life, between individual destiny and the
eruptions of History?

Within the framework of this event, the Cannes Festival hosted a meeting of the officers of the FEPACI this morning. Their organization is in charge of
lobbying African states and international institutions to set up cultural policies supporting national, regional, or inter-African motion-picture production. The meeting was highlighted by the
announcement that the FEPACI would be reorganized “to deal with the challenges of the 21st century, consisting of the rise of new technologies and digitization.” Moreover,
“FEPACI resolves to encourage the governments of African states to ratify the UNESCO Convention on preserving cultural diversity,” and that it would “set up an assistance fund to
foster and promote inter-African co-productions.” In addition, the FEPACI promised to demand local-production broadcast quotas from African television networks; to seek the repatriation of
film archives taken from the African continent during the colonial period; to create a network of cinemathèques or film libraries; and to reinforce intellectual rights and move forward
in the fight against bootlegging. Festival President Gilles Jacob added, “The Festival is happy to welcome this magnificent assembly, and hopes its support for African cinema will enable
filmmakers from that continent to present features at every Cannes Festival in years to
come.”

Photo copyright Julia Brechler