iREP treats documentary film experts to Lagos art passion

Nigerian Compass WEDNESDAY, 26 JANUARY 2011 00:00 TONY OKUYEME

By Tony Okuyeme
A FOUR-DAY celebration of documentary films, tagged iREPRESENT (iREP), ended last Sunday in Lagos. The international touring documentary film festival, an impressive outing, was held under the theme: Can Documentary Change the World?
It ended on a hopeful note with new media scholars, film makers and film enthusiasts across Africa who participated describing it as stimulating and exciting. The festival was staged in two venues in Lagos- Terra Kulture and Freedom Park, both on Victoria Island.

Through the festival’s objective, promoting independent documentary features, it brought together scores of youths and professional filmmakers, screenwriters, production company executives, feature documentary development executives, distributors, commissioning editors, cinematographers, among others to the venues. Significantly, it brought together documentary film professionals from several parts of Africa. But beyond the interaction it was an event enriched by its intellectual menu and creative engagements as organisers used it to show the capacity of documentary films as significant media for telling the African stories.


Among those present were the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Nigerian Film Corporation (NFC), Mr. Afolabi Adesanya, Manthia Diawara, a Professor of Comparative Literature and Film, and director of the Institute of African American Affairs at the New York University, Jihan El-Tahri, Mr. Tunde Kelani, Mr. Mahmood Alli-Balogun, the independent producer and art critic, Lydie Diakhate, the Founding Executive Director of Communication for Change Mrs. Sandra Obiago, Femi Odugbemi, former Managing Director of NFC Brendan Shehu, Alhaji Adegboyega Arulogun and others.
IREP festivities began on Thursday at Terra Kulture with an well-attended opening ceremony marked with a keynote address by Prof. Diawara, and the presentation of his book, African Film (New Forms of Aesthetics and Politics), and tribute to four pioneer Nigerian documentary filmmakers. There was also a workshop on the theme Redeeming the African Image: A Case for African Film Documentary, and film screening and a forum for honouring veterans for their contributions to documentary film production in Nigeria in which Mr Shehu, Arulogun, Mr Tam Fiofori and the late Chief Olu Holloway (posthumous) were honoured.
In his address at the opening ceremony, Odugbemi, a former president of Independent Television Producers Association of Nigeria (ITPAN) provided a background for the festival. He noted that for Africa the global information order regularly presents a narrative of wars, death, corruption and diseases. The steep of such media presentation of Africa is such that experts in the continent worry if their story was really being told in very balanced ways. Hence the chain-quiz: “Who is telling the story of Africa and its realities, and from what perspectives? Can African filmmakers bring better understanding within and outside the continent with documentaries that give a more rounded definition of the African experience?”
According to him, there is an on-going dialogue within the continent. He captured it as Africa being engaged in a conversation with itself concerning the shape of its future. “A new order identifying new voices and new leaders, propagating new values of accountability, transparency, fair competition, social justice and economic empowerment is emerging.
“It is a revolution of immense significance that is bringing a new optimism and pride about our future. Documentary filmmaking can be at the centre of shaping these discourses-guiding and laying bare the issues,” he noted.
In his keynote address which was on the thrust Can Documentary Change the World? Diawara who is also the founder and editor of the journal, Renaissance Noire (Black Renaissance), a bilingual review that publishes essays, fiction, reviews and artwork relating to Africa and the Black Diaspora, underscored the significance of documentary film in telling the African stories.
The workshop and screening of documentary films which marked the opening day proved to be stimulating experiences both for the veterans, young professional film makers and students. The documentary film training workshop continued on subsequent days of the festival, with focus on Digital Film making: Shoot Techniques for Documentary Production, and symposium on the to theme, Africa in Self Conversation: Documentary and Democracy on Friday.
On Saturday, there was also a roundtable discussion and screening of FESTAC 1977 documentaries on Motifs of Black Consciousness in African Documentary Films with the CEO of the Centre for Black and African Arts Civilisation (CBAAC), Prof. Tunde Babawale as moderator.
The closing ceremony was marked with drama performances. Lagos-based Crown Troupe of Nigeria performed their plays,Monkey Post and Exodus.
For Diawara, the festival was outstanding. He appraised it thus: “It was probably the exciting event... We have been doing this kind of festival in Ghana, Senegal, Mali but this is the first time we had a real gathering and momentum about documentary film, and to show that the documentaries are as exciting as fiction, because documentaries tell the truth about our archives, about our stories, about our heroes, and also about corruption in our continent. People want to know about these. So documentaries have big audiences as feature films, as Nollywood films. That is what is exciting.” Diawara said.
The Egypt-born, French film maker and author, El-Tahri, who has written, directed and produced award-winning documentary films and reported on political conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, described Lagos’s hosting of iREP as awesome.
“I am absolutely awed by the amount of efforts, the amazing selection, and what they have exposed us to. For example, it is a documentary film festival. But during the four days I have been exposed to all sorts of the arts – painting exhibition, troupe dancing – and I think it is an amazing achievement. The other thing I need to underline is that I have traveled the whole continent doing film festivals, this is the first film festival where the audiences are always there. I think that says a lot about Nigeria and Nigeria’s audiences who want to see films,” she observed.
She also appraised Nollywood thus: “I Think there has been quite an improvement in Nollywood. When Nollywood started (until) about 15 years ago, there was a general agreement that the quality was not good, that it was not what we as African film makers wanted to portray to the world as cinema. However, that has changed enormously and we are seeing today how the world is using the Nollywood model because it has been very convenient on many levels. What Nollywood has done that we have all failed to do is to device a means of distribution that actually makes the films accessible. The other thing is that Nollywood has managed to speak to the local and the local audience, and most African films remain slightly more intellectual and slightly more inaccessible to our general public.”
iREP was founded by a board of directors which include, Odugbemi; the art critic and Programmes Director of Committee for Relevant Art (CORA) Mr. Jahman Anikulapo and Director of The Lagos Film Office Mr. Makin Soyinka – all of the West African Documentary Film Forum (WADFF). The organising body’s mission is to develop and nurture the talent of young filmmakers in Africa to international reckoning.
Festival Director of iREP 2010 Mr. Dapo Kolade, stated that “the festival was also founded in recognition of the fact that that in spite of the high rate of debutants, many of whom lack appropriate knowledge in relevant departments of film making, there are still quite a good number of well-trained, talented and serious filmmakers in Nigeria who are willing and ready to work hard to reclaim the lost glory of the industry. It is imperative that at this time in its socio-political history, Nigeria ought to stand up and be counted among the real film-making countries, not only in Africa but also in the entire world. The example of countries like South Africa, Burkina Faso and many of the North African countries should serve as inspiration in this regard.”



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