A new world film festival opens in St. Louis today
Kenya Vaughn Of the St. Louis American
“The African experience is global,” said Niyi Coker, E. Desmond Lee Endowed Professor at UMSL.
“This festival allows you to understand the experiences that Africans are having in other countries around the world.”
Through the inaugural E. Desmond Lee Africa World Documentary Film Festival taking place this weekend and next weekend, Coker hopes to teach audiences about the many cultures of Africa and the Diaspora.
“Africa is not just the gloom and doom that people see in the mainstream media,” said Ephrem M. Andemariam, coordinator of the African/African American Studies Center for International Studies at University of Missouri-St. Louis
“It is a continent full of natural resources – a land of 700 million people with 54 countries, more than 1,000 cultures, 3,000 languages and every religion you can think of.”
While gloom and doom are certainly not overlooked in the 60-plus short and feature-length documentaries that make up the festival, the biggest epiphany for audiences will be the striking similarities, both in crises and culture, between Africans and their descendents around the globe.
“The same thing as with the African-American community, there is more to it than what you hear,” said Andemariam, a native of Ethiopia.
“There is more to Africa than slavery. Even before slavery and before colonialism these were people with their own culture. We are talking about a continent that can actually trace its history back three to four thousand years.”
The festival, which highlights both ancient and contemporary aspects of life for descendents of Africa, is Coker’s brainchild.
“When we first started, people were like, ‘How many films are you really going to get? How many people are putting out documentaries about the African experience?’” Coker said.
“I said, ‘Lets put it out and see.’ And they just starting pouring in to us. The hardest part was narrowing down.”
Coker said they received nearly 300 films from all over the world. Most selections are the work of independent filmmakers producing high-quality work with very limited budgets.
“It was really encouraging,” said Andemariam. “We created a way for St. Louis to become a Midwest center for showing these types of films.”
On the screen
The herbal weight-loss supplement Hoodia described in commercials as the miracle weight loss drug is the primary subject of The Bushmen’s secret. The film explores the origin of the plant and how Western exploitation of a tribal secret threatens extinction for a group of people in the Kalahari Desert of Southern Africa. Once thought of as savages and animals, South African indigenous people are now lauded as health professionals. Their remedies are being advertised as having the potential to change the dynamic of the weight-loss industry.
The plight of females in hip-hop is explored through the eyes of new-school citizens of South Africa in Counting Headz. The film illustrates how misogyny and objectification create conflict for women in the male-dominated music industry.
“The hip-hop area was mind blowing,” Coker said. “The hip-hop culture of African-American young people is dictating and influencing people around the world.”
Coker said that they received more than 30 films that reflect the globalization of hip-hop and hope to present more of the films next year.
Other festival films document civil rights movements in Trenton, NJ and Selma, the legendary Heath Brothers, an endurance run up an African volcano, mentoring efforts among troublemaking Canadian teens of African descent, and a brief alliance in the 1960s and 1970s between Black Muslims, the American Indian Movement and the government of Libya.
Whatever the subject, some of the stories remain the same, whether the people portrayed live in Columbia, Brazil, Canada, the U.S. or any corner of Africa.
For the films that do feature the devastation, dissolution and warfare that resulted from slavery and colonization, the message is still hope. Africa’s sons, daughters and many generations of her grandchildren are doing what they do best – defying odds and surviving.
“It’s more than AIDS, hunger and poverty, it is our history” Andemariam said.
“It’s an ongoing process. It is part of our heritage, and we should be proud of it. But we should also learn from the experiences and the struggle of our forefathers, and continue that strength.”
The Africa World Documentary Film Festival will screen at the Tivoli Theatre October 4 – October 7 and at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis October 11 -13. Fore more information, visit http://www.umsl.edu/services/cis/special_projects/AWDFF/AWDFF_home.html
