RLFR 311(F) Francophone Cinema

This course immerses students into Francophone African and Caribbean cinema. The issues explored include colonial and postcolonial mentalities, social realism, tradition and modernity, women's roles, African immigration to Europe, popular culture and the diaspora. The course examines the evolution of African cinema from its beginning in the 1950's to the present. We will observe how this medium moved from being used as a tool for colonial conquest, as a means for satisfying some exotic needs of the West, to a device for ethnographic research, what Jean Rouch refers to as "ethnofiction". Then, refusing to be subjected to the only perspective of the Other, African filmmakers from the 1960's struggled to conquer the art by imposing their own perspective, by claiming the right for Africans to be seen through their own eyes. The course also studies the relationship between Africa and the Caribbean as expressed for example through the topic of the initiatory journey, an allegory of the quest for identity and for the past. Films studied include Bassek Ba Kobhio's Le grand Blanc de Lambarene, Kramo-Lanciné Fadika's Djeli, conte d'aujourd'hui, Mweze Ngangura's Pièces d'identité, Ousmane Sembene's Xala and Moolaadé, Anne- Laure Folly's Femmes aux yeux ouverts, Moufida Tlatli's Les silences du Palais, Adama Drabo's Ta Dona, Dani Kouyaté's Kéita! L'héritage du griot, Souleymane Cissé's Yeelen, Merzak Allouache's Salut cousin, Abderrahmane Sissako's Heremakono, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's Abouna, Yamina Benguigui's Inch Allah Dimanche, Euzhan Palcy's Rue Cases-Nègres, Guy Deslauriers's L'exil du roi Behanzin.
Format: discussion/seminar. Grades are based on participation, one oral presentation, two short papers (4-5 pages) and one final paper (10-12 pages) on the films studied.
Prerequisites: any 200-level RLFR course, or results of the Williams College Placement Exam, or permission of instructor. Enrollment limit: 20 (expected: 15).

Hour: OUÉDRAOGO