“It’s not always about the grim state of the continent,” said Wilmetta Toliver-Diallo, assistant dean in the College of Arts & Sciences at Washington University and senior lecturer in African and African-American Studies in Arts & Sciences.
“When we think of Africa, we often think of disease, poverty, war and charity and not how these people live their everyday lives.”
A complex comedy exploring the side effects of a family when love has come undone; an African nation caught in the crossfire of gang violence; a family’s desperate attempt to deal with being a casualty of terrorism; and a girl one generation from Ghana growing into a woman in New York City.
These are just a few examples of the subject matter guests will experience through the variety of films to be featured at Washington University for the 5th Annual African Film festival this weekend (March 26 – 28).
Whether it’s light subject matter surrounding love and rejection or a ravaged country torn apart by a lost generation who turned to gang life, the lineup of this year’s festival manages to showcase an impressive display of cinematic talent and possibilities for effectively expressing the comprehensive experiences of Africans and their descendents.
“There is an everyday life that operates that I think sometimes we forget when we think of other cultures, and these films and these filmmakers capture that – from the arts to sports, Toliver-Diallo said.
“They offer – either through the storyline or the glimpses behind the storyline – the culture beyond the culture.”
The most compelling commonality is … the commonality. The films explore shared experiences and emotions, which anyone from anywhere around the globe could relate to in some way or another.
“In these films you see the same class struggles, teenage struggles and so on that we deal with every day,” Toliver-Diallo said. “These films explore questions about tradition and about relationships.”
A prime example of these struggles can be found in Yoni Brook and Musa Syeed’s Bronx Princess.
17-year-old Rocky is already the “Type A” independent, headstrong black woman of power in training. But she must forget the success and survival skills she learned in New York City when she spends her last summer before graduation with her father in Ghana.
Her growing pains on the cusp of independence are more than evident with her mother at home, but things reach a boiling point when she must submit to the traditions of her family’s native land.
Every range of emotion felt by the seeds of the Diaspora are covered in this year’s festival – and very few take place on the continent’s many battlefields. Most of them are felt in the middle ground.
In Sex, Okra and Salted Butter (Mahamat Saleh Haroun), an African family who migrated to Paris many years before falls apart when the matriarch defies tradition and abandons her husband for a young white man.
Although they live comfortably in the big city with a successful son, typically unseen issues – including sexuality, unwed pregnancy and female liberation – manage to make viewers laugh, think and learn about the common (and global) experiences that this family must work through.
The festival began at the university as an opportunity for Toliver-Diallo to showcase the work of African filmmakers as a supplement to a class she was teaching on African cinema. It instantly caught on.
“We didn’t know what to expect; we didn’t know audience-wise what we were going to get,” Toliver-Diallo said. “That very first year, there were no seats.”
The idea to make the festival an annual event came through a casual comment from an instant fan of what Toliver-Diallo and Wash U. were presenting.
“As we were wrapping up, a person said, ‘See you next year,’” Diallo said. “So we did it again, and people kept coming.”
Her desire is that film connoisseurs keep her in mind when they think of the ongoing festivals here in St. Louis.
“I hope that people think of going to Cinema St. Louis’ Festival in November, the African Documentary Film Festival in February and ours in March,” she said.
The Washington University African Film Festival will take place from Mar. 26 – Mar. 28( in Brown Hall, Room 100) and will feature 8 films from 8 different countries in Africa focusing on a variety of themes. The festival is free and open to the public. For more information, visit wupa.wustl.edu/africanfilm or call 314-935-7879.
