Why film should now join African literary discourse

Prof Ngugi wa Thiong’o has acquired a new name — Babarinde, a fitting tribute from West Africa to one of the continent’s greatest writers. The Yoruba name, which means the Father has come home, was given to Ngugi at the closing session of the Ake Arts and Literature festival held in Abeokuta, Nigeria on November 19, 2016.

At the closing session, Nigerian playwright and critic Prof Femi Osofisan gave Ngugi the name to the delight of guests who had just listened to Ngugi in conversation with Okey Ndibe under the Life and Time series.

Ake hosted some of Africa’s finest minds in literature and film interspersed with poetry and an on-site art exhibition. Alain Mabanckou, Molara Wood, Noviolet Bulawayo, Teju Cole, Helon Habila, Tendai Huchu and Laila Lalami were some of the speakers at the event. There were no airs in the space where everyone was a celebrity of sorts given the audiences they command through their writings.  The festival celebrated new writings through the book chat sessions and panel discussions.

Okey Ndibe, in one of the sessions, was asked, “Are you an Achebe man?” The question was in reference to his relationship with his mentor, Chinua Achebe, whose ideologies and writing influenced him.

Okey simply answered: “I am a Soyinka man, an Achebe man and a Ngugi man,” a response that could easily have been given by many authors in the room on who they looked up to for inspiration.

Africa is having a literary conversation. It is this talking that sees authors drawing ideology and references from each other’s work and celebrating them.

It was in Ngugi beginning his conversations by paying homage to the new breed of African writers producing works in their mother languages as he does in his native Gikuyu. Like Hafsatu Abdulwahid, the first female author from Northern Nigeria, who writes in Hausa, to Olayemi Oniroyin, who blogs in his native Yoruba.

It is in Molara Wood masterfully drawing out parallels — both personal and literal between Kunle Ajibade and Ngugi’s texts of their prison experiences. Ajibade, author of Jailed for Life: A reporter’s Prison Notes was detained in similar fashion as Ngugi and each shared about their time there.

It was in the excess of emotions all across the cinema hall that came from watching Hissene Habre’s A Chadian Tragedy.

Even Kenyan blogger James Murua had his place at the table, discussing how the media approaches new writing alongside others.

Although I made it to very few sessions at Ake, there was something to look forward to at every turn. From the bookstand where university students emptied their monthly food allowances to buy books to corners piled high with richly woven adire (tie and dye) fabric for sale, famously made in Abeokuta.

Running parallel to Ake was the African Film Festival (AFRIFF) hosted in Lagos. AFRIFF was characterised by red carpet cinema openings featuring Nollywood stars and producers at the gathering of Africa’s finest cinematic minds.

The event had screenings for film and documentaries on-going from all over the continent in three of the major cinema chains. Concurrently, filmmakers discussed how to increase collaborative efforts, funding, distribution and sustainability for the industry.

Majority of those who attended were from Nigeria, with Cameroon having a small representation, Ghana, Egypt and South Africa.

Jackie Lebo’s The Last Fight and Gilbert Lukalia’s Confessor were screened, but not Mbithi Masya’s Kati Kati, which had been highly publicised to air. It never appeared on the program screenings and no one could tell me which cinema it was showing.

AFRIFF’s opening panel had Paul Higginson, executive vice-president of 20th Century Fox, who mentioned that Africa has huge potential in film as an emerging market. Nigerian filmmakers are calling for the movie giant to screen some of its movies to its global audiences.

That said, it seems that African film has had a difficult time penetrating the Nigerian market due to content. Kene Mkparu, chief executive of Filmhouse Cinemas, noted that without the right angle or face, his media house would be unwilling to screen films that don’t have a Nigerian face.

“Let’s face it, why would I want to put a product that will not sell on my market shelves?” he quipped. “We couldn’t screen a South African film which did extremely well at their box office earlier this year because it had no connection with our audiences. It didn’t feature a Nigerian face nor have our storyline in it. Simple.”

The movie in question was Happiness is a Four-Letter Word, which features actress Khanyi Mbau.

Nigeria is no doubt the high priest of film business on the continent and is fiercely protective about its terrain. Mkparu wasn’t alone in his ideas; Don Omope, whose The Wedding Party is set to release early December, revealed that his company does not work with non- Nigerians on their movie sets as the country already has enough talent.

On the flipside, Mkparu shows that there’s a huge difference between television drama and film. “Two of the biggest films in Nigeria couldn’t make money in Kenya, but Kenyans are watching Nollywood every day,” he informed. Those are two different products that need distinguishing.

The Ake confluence and conversations needs to take place in African film for AFRIFF to really celebrate. There is so much the rest of the continent can learn from Nollywood. Kene believes that this investment has to come from a personal space and need to invest in your craft.

“Much of our problem is that we are making films that donors have paid for, so we are not thinking much about the business side of things. We must begin to pay our way through the craft, for only then will we be serious about making films that have box office appeal,” he said.