Saturday, March 01, 2008

Africa Unite in cinema



Teresa Prata


There is nothing in television not at least good and intelligent cinema . Cinémas in Morocco are empty not because of piracy as it is emphasized by so many but because CCM commissions encourage bad directors to make films.Therefore,we think to go to Essamarine or Derb Ghalef to look for Intelligent cinema.Derb Ghallaf itself has nothing special but only some unrealistic and faked stories made by Hollywood movies -makers like Spiderman, Bathman and finally Bad-movieman.

So,fortunately we have the net.We navigate enthousiastically may be we could find something to read or see .Oh yes ,there is Jugu Abraham's recent article on an African movie-maker called Teresa Prata.Jugu Abraham's criteria for movies makes me write these lines because this film critic writes perfectly and he would let me weep and sigh for a lost cinema in some parts of the world .At the end, Can Africa be united as Bob Marley used to sing this verse ,i mean to be united at least in producing intelligent cinema ?
Allal El Alaoui

African films, in my view fall into three distinct categories. The first category includes films made on African subjects by native Africans, as exemplified by the cinema of the late Ousmane Sembene. The second category includes movies made by African Arabs on subjects relating to north Africa and the Horn of Africa (e.g., films of Youssef Chahine in Egypt, Mohamad Asli and Souhel Ben Barka in Morocco, Mahamet Saleh Haroun in Chad). The third category is African cinema made by expatriates with a short exposure to Africa, blending external sensibilities with those of native Africans (e.g., Gillo Pontecorvo’s Battle of Algiers, Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala). Teresa Prata’s Sleepwalking Land will fall within that final category.
Written by Jugu Abraham