Searching the Film Archives: Activating Memories, Reflections and Histories.
When:
—
Venue:
Birkbeck 43 Gordon Square
Searching the Film Archives: Activating Memories, Reflections and Histories
Colonial Reels: Histories and Afterlives of Colonial Film Collections in collaboration with the June Givanni Pan African Cinema Archive presents:
An evening of screenings, discussion and debate with a focus on Africa about access to film archive and the audiovisual heritage of the African continent. Who owns the film archives? What is the market in film archive? What has happened to the archives in African countries and what is the legacy of cinema on the continent?
Two films screenings - one short and one feature film - will focus our panels and audience discussion after the each of the screenings. The introductions and panels include members of the Colonial Reels: Histories and Afterlives of Colonial Film Collections project and the June Givanni Pan African Cinema Archive as well as invited guests.
5.00.p.m. Introduction to the Colonial Reels project and the June Givanni Pan African Cinema Archive
5.30.p.m.
Complexifying Restitution (Jihan El Tahri, France, 2022, 11 mins)
This short film was part of an installation exhibited at the Berlin Biennale in 2022, about the restitution of African film.
Jihan El Tahri, the director, is a campaigner on the issue of film archives on the African continent and in the global north. An award-winning filmmaker and visual artist, she has directed and produced documentary films, authored books and reported on political conflicts in the Middle East and Africa. Jihan is a member of the Executive Bureau of FEPACI and Secretary General of The Guild of African Filmmakers in the Diaspora. Her documentaries include Nasser (2015), Behind the Rainbow (2009), and Cuba: An African Odyssey (2007). She was general director of the Berlin-based documentary support institution DOX BOX (2019-2023). She is on the Advisory Board of the Colonial
Reels: Histories and Afterlives of Colonial Film Collections project.
Short break
6.15.p.m
The Cemetery of Cinema (Thierno Souleymane Diallo, France/Senegal/Guinea/Saudi Arabia, 2023, 93 mins)
In the film, the director, Thierno Souleymane Diallo, sets out to search for the 1953 Guinean film Mouramani, the earliest documented film made by an African. His journey leads him through the run-down cinemas and archives of his country, Guinea, encountering filmmakers, archivists and audiences whom he interviews. Diallo’s film attempts to reconstruct the history of this burgeoning cinema during the early years of independence from 1958, under President Ahmed Sékou Touré, a country formerly under French rule.
Thierno Souleymane Diallo studied at the Institute of Superior Arts in Dubréka, Guinea, followed by degrees in creative documentary in Niger and Senegal. He has made films for public television in Guinea and his documentaries include Voyage vers l’espoir (Journey of Hope, 2014), Un homme pour ma famille (A Man for my Family, 2015), and Nô Mëtî Sîfâdhe (Hard to Tell, 2019).
The screening will be followed by drinks and nibbles in the cinema foyer.
Colonial Reels: Histories and Afterlives of Colonial Film Collections https://www.bristol.ac.uk/film/research/colonial-reels/
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June Givanni Pan African Cinema Archive https://www.junegivannifilmarchive.org/
Contact name: Matthew Barrington
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