Sixth Edition of the Real Life Documentary Festival has come round once again, bringing to Accra another exciting forum for watching brilliant films, engaging in tete a tetes with filmmakers, producers, scholars and community activists on films. These films explore a wide range of relevant topics, telling the story of Africa in diverse ways. Not only does this festival encourage Africans to tell their own stories and to take creative risks, it networks these stories not only to Africans but to the public and filmmakers worldwide. The festival also focuses on whetting the youth’s appetite for filmmaking, encourage young filmmakers, and giving them a platform to learn, exchange ideas and network with film gurus across Africa and worldwide.
This year’s edition explores the relationship between fiction and documentary in African cinema. Thus, the festival showcased many strict documentary-style films, as well as films which blurred the lines between fiction and documentaries, with its fictional characters but realist approach to story-telling.
Films
Eyo, by Olubusola Akinwunmi Holloway: The ‘Eyo’ festival is a traditional masquerade play in Lagos, a tradition which has been in existence for over 300 years, in the coastal town of Lagos. The origin of the masquerade has always been shrouded in mystery. There are some masquerades which should not be photographed, and this masquerade is not an exception. It is especially a taboo for the “Adamu Orisha”, the head of all Eyo masquerades, to be captured on camera. However, Holloway manages to capture quite a substantial amount of this important Nigerian tradition on camera without revealing any deadly secrets! This film is made even more valuable in its exploration of the origins of this mysterious masquerade. An important aspect of African traditions and culture captured for posterity as this film does, sends the powerful message that we should not discard our past or our culture – the quintessential elements of what defines us as Africans.
Bar Beach Blues, by Femi Odugbemi: This thirty-minute film is one of those specially chosen ones which prove the immense use of fiction in documentary. This film takes its audience to a real place, Bar Beach, with fictional characters, but tells true-to-life stories. The hidden horrors of the popular Bar Beach are brought to light in a satirical manner: corruption, fraud, hypocrisy, theft, poverty and many more. If examined on the surface, Femi Odugbemi brings to his audience the realities of what still happens on Bar Beach : beggars, children, prostitutes, fake religious men conniving to work together for evil. On the other hand, Femi tells a much deeper story if Bar Beach is seen a metaphor for what really happens in our African societies, in politics, business and religion. These very different facets of our society which are the fulcrum of our society, commit crimes of hypocrisy, connive, steal and work for personal gain. No doubt, these are the resounding lessons to be learnt in this documentary/fiction, despite the amateurish acting.
Freedom Riders, by Stanley Nelson: This film takes its audience back to an important time in World history: the struggle of African Americans in their horrid position as an inferior race of people. The film examines the segregationist policies of the Jim Crow system which established rules that kept white and black in different sections, in the buses, in restaurants, and even in restrooms. This system thrived and was violently enforced in many states, particularly the southern states, while the federal government, under the Kennedy administration remained indifferent, preoccupied with matters abroad. That is until an integrated band of college students (black and white) – many of whom were the first in their families to attend a university – decided, en masse, to risk everything and make a loud enough statement about the hypocrisies of the Jim Crow system in America, the land of the “Free”. This mixed group of black and white students working together bought tickets and boarded Greyhound buses headed for the dangerously racist deep South, and refused to obey the segregationist rules of blacks sitting at the back of the bus and whites enjoying the more spacious front seats. They called themselves the Freedom Riders and these brave groups of students suffered the worst forms of hatred possible, even to points of being gassed out of the bus to be lynched. It took this brave act to draw the attention of the President who was occupied with portraying to the world what a free and fair world America was supposed to be. This struggle for the civil rights of blacks drew the attention of the world and revealed the hypocrisy of America to the Germans and communists. In recognition of Nelson’s efforts and filmmaking genius, “Freedom Riders” has just won three Primetime Emmys.
The Witches of Gambaga, by Yaba Badoe: This extraordinary documentary chronicles a community of women who live as witches in a section of Northern Ghana. Shot over the course of five years, Yaba Badoe gets the accused women to tell their woeful and unjust stories, and the realities of male supremacy and religious belief taken to extreme levels are revealed. Yaba Badoe does not attempt to preach, blame or prescribe in this documentary. She simply captures on camera the realities of this monstrosity for her audience and leaves them to judge what should be done about the situation.
Pennies for the Boatman, by Niyi Coker: Set in the black neighborhood of St. Louis in 1958, this is yet another film screened which showcases the important blend of fiction and documentary. The film tells the story of two very different African American sisters, who suffer the trauma of a dead mother, an absentee dad, and an uncle who sexually abuses them. Both sisters grow up, dealing with their trauma in very different ways: one finds her strength in the church and her family, while the other finds hers in hurting, destroying the men in her life, and blaming her sister for all their troubles. The story begins with the wild sister form New York coming back home to her sister in St. Louis for two reasons: running away from the coldness of New York after spending ten years in Jail, and to destroy her sister’s life. This story brings the realities of the time to its audience: black inferiority and white supremacy, sexual abuse by family, and many more. This film is based on the play “The Seamstress of St. Francis Street” by Mario Farwell, which won the 2008 E. Desmond Lee Playwriting Contest for Full Length Productions. This film was premiered for the opening ceremony.
Nyamanton, La Lecon des Ordures, by Cheick Oumar Sissoko: This fiction/documentary contained the right amount of power with which to end the film festival. Cheick Oummar, with fictional characters acting as themselves, brings to life the hardships of poverty, class systems, child labour, greed, and corruption in Mali in 1983. What makes this film profound is that twenty-odd years later, circumstances have still not really changed. Those issues are still very much a part of African societies today: the gaping difference between rich and poor, little boys working hard in the scorching sun to help feed their families, children having to carry their own chairs and tables to schools, school becoming a profitable business instead of the societal duty it is to perform in educating the people, doctors refusing to treat emergencies without payment, resulting in the death of some patients, little girls working as hawkers threatened daily by lecherous men, and many more outstanding issues. However, the facts of the typical close-knit African family, the beautiful, yet ironical fact of laughter being very much a part of poverty-ridden people’s lives to be able to deal with the pain of their status, are veru wonderfully captured in the film. Cheick Oummar tells this painful story in a comedic way which actually has his audience laughing despite some pretty emotional scenes. The film ends on a strongly emotional scene which establishes the utter lack of hope and an increase in desolation. Cheick Oummar suggests no solutions but simply conveys a sense to his audience that the suffering of these poor section of society may continue indefinitely and twenty-eight years later, it is still here!
Other films shown were: Africa is back (By Stanley Nelson), Mining for change (by Eric MIyeni), Indochina, Traces of a Mother (By Idrissou Mora Kpai), Headlines in History (by Judy Kibinge), and the Rabbit Theory (by Rinske Bossch and Nicole Batteke)
Lydie Diakhate and Akwam Amkpa are the founders and directors of this great event. Kudos to them and all who supported this event! The next edition of the Real Life Documentary Festival comes off on the 4th to 7th of October 2012.
It is a wonderful thing to take one’s eyes from what is supposedly the ‘race of life’ from time to time, and remember one’s duties and obligations to humanity in whatever way one can. This festival definitely achieves that, especially in its inclusion of the youth, and its bid to educate them through the profound medium of film.
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