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African Renaissance Vol. 14, (Nos. 3 & 4), Sept/Dec 2017 African cinemas and African languages Guest Editor: Françoise Ugochukwu

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ISSN : 1744-2532 (Print) 2516-5305 (Online)

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The present issue of African Renaissance focuses on the choice of language in African filmmaking, an issue which first came to light in 1968 when for the first time the Senegalese writer and filmmaker Sembene Ousmane decided to use Wolof as the main language of expression in Manda bi. Long hidden from view as Western research and publications chose to focus on films in colonial languages (mainly French or English), this issue has gradually emerged as central as filmmakers gradually ventured into so-called ‘vernacular’ productions, with Nigerian films questioning previous choices and addressing the need for films to speak first to their local and regional audiences. Articles gathered here and covering various parts of the continent reveal an explosion of films in various languages - Wolof, Moore, Dioula, Yoruba, Igbo, Edo, Sotho and others – emerging from the shadows, breaking age-long language barriers and making their way into success. They analyse an array of movies, from Sembene Ousmane’s well-known productions to less well-known films from Western and Southern Africa, adding to the budding scholarship on filmmaking in African languages. Bamoussa Farma’s contribution illustrates the overall desire to show that film production in African languages best showcases and enhances African aesthetics, contributing to the protection, safeguard and promotion of African languages, cultures and traditions, civilizations and know-how in many aspects.

Amadou Fofana’s and Louis Ndong’s contributions both focus on Sembene Ousmane’s films. As explained by Fofana, although the decision to make Manda bi in Wolof was quite revolutionary at the time and came with many challenges, including him being literally forced to do another shoot of Manda bi, using French language, to satisfy the demands of the French who funded the film, he never wavered thereafter. While he used mostly Wolof and French, Bambara, Pulaar and Dioula do play an important role in some of his films. After the experience of Le Mandat (French version of Manda bi), making films in the language of his choosing became a non-negotiable option, and the use of French in his films became rather tangential and mostly politically motivated, providing a way to explore African society and culture more profoundly while suggesting for Wolof to become the official language in place of French because more than 80 percent of Senegalese speak it. Ndong examines the role and impact of the use of the same African languages on the reception of Sembène’s films.

In the interview he very kindly granted us, the internationally acclaimed Nigerian filmmaker Tunde Kelani explains that his cultural experience has been the primary source of his inspiration, and that he chose Yoruba filmmaking as the best way to share that experience, persuaded that the indigenous language could not be replicated or substituted by a foreign language. He adds that films he made in Yoruba language - a 3-tone language, deeper, richer and sophisticated in a way totally different from European languages - and subtitled in English, French and Portuguese, are far more popular than those in English, since the direction of his cinema remains a dialogue between him and the Yoruba audience. Even though English language films may do well in some cities and among the elite, he said that they would certainly be ignored or viewed with indifference by Yoruba audiences.

Bunmi Ashaolu’s paper analyses some Yorùbá Nollywood canonical films and illustrates how their directors make use of strictly scripted films in Yorùbá language to preserve the authenticity of the language and reconstruct cultural memory. This ensures the revitalizing of usable traditions and cultural practices and bring to the fore many centuries of the ancient Yoruba civilization through a paremiological analysis of the richly coded Yorùbá language in the films. In addition, the production of canonical films in Yorùbá advances the preservation of Yorùbá language and culture, which in the recent times has been facing linguistic threat due to the influence of modernity and globalization. Ashaolu notes that even though English is the official language of Nigerians, only some 30% of the population speak and understand it (Encyclopaedia of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education 363). It is also known that “more than one third of Nigerian video films are still produced in Yorùbá and that more Nigerian languages are accessing Nollywood production” (Ugochukwu 2013). The article focuses on the exceptional use of òwe Yorùbá in canonical Nollywood movies, to prove that it lays bare the importance of Yorùbá proverbs, universally known as strong elements of the people’s orality, and reveals Yorùbá ethnography, knowledge systems, ideology and values

Omoera’s study examines the anthropomorphic elements in Benin (another Nigerian language) films, focusing on Okpaniya (dir. Ezekiel, 2003), a video drama that explores the rich folkloric tradition of the Benin people of Midwestern Nigeria. Such films rely heavily on Benin orature for their subject matter - actual events, myths, legends or folktales rooted in some distant idyllic Benin world which still command respect and acceptance in the contemporary Benin society. For the author, Benin film content creators should be encouraged to increasingly integrate Benin values, norms and identity in their creative works to consolidate Benin video-film’s presence in a glocalising Nollywood and propagate Benin language, history and culture on a wider but discursive space.

Cyprian Josson’s study brings in little known first-hand information on the gradual in-road Nollywood films have been making in France, starting with the distribution of Nigerian DVDs in African markets in Paris before the advent of information technologies and Internet gave people access to watch movies on a number of personal devices. Then came the first Nigerian Cultural Week organized from 25^th to 29^th September 2006 by the Nigerian Embassy in Paris and NIDOE (Nigerians in Diaspora Organization Europe). Since 2012, the French public can access the cable “Nollywood TV” with dubbed European French voices. Josson assesses the pros and cons of this choice, and concludes that, in the absence of any other option at that time, people subscribed massively to Nollywood TV because of their need to quench their nostalgic feeling and because it felt like the easiest ticket to the motherland. Another approach is to watch free Nigerian films on the Internet, with some dubbed in French language and others subtitled in English. The article also presents the now yearly Nollywood Week Paris festival, created in 2013 on a shoestring budget and seeking to showcase Nollywood in Paris. The similarities between the films considered here are the languages used - Nigerian English, Pidgin and Yoruba for Taxi Driver and Igbo, Yoruba, Pidgin and English for Phone Swap, and the French subtitles, which helped the audience to cross the cultural and language barrier. As long as Nigerian filmmakers will continue to create characters that are smart and good at what they are doing in a given environment, and other characters that can change things in their communities, there will be no language barrier, either for the French viewers or the Diaspora audience in France.

Françoise Ugochukwu’s study, based on four sets of online questionnaires and interviews dated 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2017, seeks to evaluate the impact of the language of Nigerian films on their reception among diasporic communities in the UK and in a number of other countries, in the context of expressed fears concerning the future of Nigerian languages abroad. It investigates the degree of influence of language on viewers’ motivations, the role played by the cultural message of the language in identity-reinforcement within the Nigerian community in diaspora, and the potential impact of these films on the revival of language and cultural practices among resettled communities. It also introduces a new trend of online-released films in Nigerian languages other than English, which is likely to completely change the Nigerian filmic landscape.She concludes that the availability of films in Nigerian languages online has already started to bring its fruits, as reported by some 2017 young respondents who subscribed to Yoruba films on YouTube.

Two of the articles, from two different corners of the continent, join in to remind us of the direct impact of Nollywood films, not only on entertainment and language consolidation but also on public health. Servanne Woodward has chosen to focus on the impact of the language on efforts under way to persuade African communities – here, in Senegal - to abandon traditional female genital mutilations in order to improve women’s sexual health. Her analysis of the role played in this regard by Sembene Ousmane’s films, their language and those of their subtitles, is a welcome addition to the continent’s scholarship on this poorly studied subject. As she points out, language choices in subtitles (French and English) or in the Dioula soundtrack would seem indifferent to the message against female excision and the exposure of the social structures supporting it. Yet, upon closer examination, speech and social hierarchies, gender divisions and access to media, especially radio and television, and the control of information, are intimately tied to the governing structure of the village depicted in Moolaadé. The last contribution, from Limakatso Chaka and Sele Ratede, comes from southern Africa and studies Kau la Photo I and II [A Male Duck], an educational film in two parts launched in 2008 and 2011 respectively through the sponsorship of the Government of Lesotho and the World Health Organisation as part of Lesotho’s national response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The film’s objective was to disseminate facts about HIV/AIDS, influence social and behavioural changes as well as promote community-based solutions to health issues. The paper examines Monyatsi’s representation of the Basotho communities facing the challenges of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the interplay between language and gender relations among wealthy urban and rural Basotho men.

On the whole, this issue of African Renaissance enriches the budding scholarship on cinema in African languages, revealing a rapidly growing production in those languages and the new roles assigned to them for the betterment of local populations, and challenging African scholars to explore more of these films.

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