| Africa
Dreaming
Africa Dreaming is designed to give Africans a rare opportunity to speak directly to each other in their own words and images. It is also the first continent-wide media project in which South Africa has played a leading role. Africa Dreaming may be a harbinger of what South Africa's advanced telecommunications infrastructure can contribute to the long-term goal of creating a regional film and television industry. Series Executive
Producer Jeremy Nathan (In a Time of Violence)
asked for script proposals for 26 minute dramatic shorts on the broad
theme of "love in Africa." Six programs were selected and produced from
South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Senegal and Tunisia; four
are included on this cassette. Sophia's
Homecoming Sophia's Homecoming reminds us that the devastating personal effects of the massive social dislocations caused by apartheid can never be erased. Sophia, like so many other women, had to become a self-reliant provider for her family, working as a domestic for a white family in Windhoek for twelve years. When her husband, Naftali, finally finds a job, she returns home with the dream of resuming her former family life. She quickly discovers that during her absence her sister Selna has replaced her in the affections of her children ö and her husband. Naftali reluctantly admits that he prefers Selna; he is ashamed with Sophia because she has had to support the family. Sophia pressures Selna to leave but she confesses she is pregnant with Naftali's child. Sophia realizes that she alone has developed the strength to make a new life for herself and returns with her three children to Windhoek, an ironic homecoming. Sabriya This film explores the impact of the modern world on the traditional male society of the Maghreb. It is a film about men who prefer to live life as an abstract game and the free-spirited woman who changes all that. Said and Youssef have fulfilled a life-time dream by opening a "chess bar" in the middle of the desert. The men sit around drinking palm wine, playing board games and composing love poetry to imaginary women. All this changes with the arrival of Sarah, a sexually liberated, uninhibited métisse who easily lures Youssef into an affair. Soon he is dreaming not about chess but about opening a coffee bar in Genoa. The friendship is destroyed, the bar sold; Youssef, dressed in Western clothes, waits to leave with Sarah; will she show up? Said boards a train and sits down next to a Westernized woman bearing a resemblance to Sarah.... So
Be It Based on a play by Wolé Soyinka, The Strong Breed, So Be It offers an emotionally searing allegory of present day Africa's bloody internecine convulsions. Michael, an idealistic foreign doctor, (played by Martinican star, Alex Descas) has had little success bringing the promises of modernity to a dusty village of the damned in the Sahel. His lover, Sunma, a teacher and native of the place, has no illusions about the village, "a world which will cannibalize its children" (according to a Wolof incantation) in a futile effort to compensate for human powerlessness. She simply wants to live and love - and leave before the killing starts. But Michael seems transfixed; he stays and tries, ineffectively, to prevent the villagers from sacrificing a mentally disturbed mute boy he has befriended. Perhaps Michael sees in himself, even in his hope for scientific progress, a reflection of the villagers' own horror at human fate. Director, Gai Ramaka, has described the origins of this African Heart of Darkness: "I had to make this film to exorcize the terror of this continent, trapped inside me and driving me, so that on that day I will not be able to say, ÎI did not know.'" At the center of
this story is a woman, a woman felt, however, only by her absence, in
other words a dream of a woman, perhaps even the lost dreams for a post-independence
Mozambique. Salomão owns a bar in Maputo, still down at the heels
after the civil war, where the local machos drink and talk of soccer
and women. He rather gruffly takes care of his adopted nephew, Betinho,
a war orphan. Some years before, a young woman, Julia, left him because
he refused to let her work or study outside the house. Instead, she
married Saide, the man next door. Nothing has been heard from her for
months except the sound of constant wife-beating inside Saide's house.
Finally Salomão decides to put a stop to the beatings only to
discover that Julia left Saide long ago because he kept blaming her
for his own sterility. The mock beatings were his pathetic way of convincing
the world he still had a wife. In this wry but pessimistic film, the
men sense their machismo has driven away what they most desired but
lack the strength to change. Salomão explains to Betinho that
they are like the stars, cursed to look for their lost dream forever
Colonial
and Post-Colonial
Identity |
"Captivating
and highly effective,...There is a mystical yearning in each film and
the landscapes are more characters than locations... One of the most
provocative offerings of this year's festival." "Africa
Dreaming
represents the talents of a fresh generation of African filmmakers.
A unique intracontinental collaboration, each segment transcends geographical
boundaries and delivers an engrossing story with universal appeal"
Video
Purchase: $195
|
Africa
Dreaming
is a landmark in African television, a series drawing together for the
first time broadcasters, television producers, film directors and writers
from across the continent. 
