Jamie Cross reports from his vist to the Bradford African Film Festival last week.
Last Friday (3rd February) saw the second of the Bradford African Film Festival screenings, based at the University of Bradford. This was a free screening of Bamako (2006), which was followed by a complementary African food reception (very delicious) where the audience could discuss the issues raised in the film with each other and with Professor Paul Rogers.
Bamako (2006) is international director Abderrahmane Sissako’s imagining of how The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund would fare in a trial against Africa. This trial uses real-life lawyers and advocates to try the case, which is set against the domestic lives of inhabitants of Bamako (Mali’s capital), showing how legislation, debt, and the West have real world consequences.
If you’re looking for a conventional narrative or documentary film, you won’t find it here. Bamako forces its audience to make the connections between the characters and the trial, to create your own narrative out of the vague stories and unfamiliar settings presented.
Most striking is that the trial is set in a courtyard which is regularly interrupted by people exiting the building, babies crying, or even on hold for a “social realities break” (like a passing wedding). This is at odds with our expectation of an organised, dispassionate judicial system. Why set a trial of world consequence here? How can we concentrate on the facts with all these “people” around? It is for these very reasons that the trial is set here. One witness for the prosecution argues that “globalisation is de-humanising”. So often it is easy to talk of world debt and the action of nations without realising the consequences for the man on the street. In Bamako this is impossible; the microcosm and macrocosm are shown together.
How has debt affected this society presented? It is well known that the majority of Africa’s gross income goes to pay world debt and a fraction to sustaining the population; crippling the economy and hindering any kind of growth. One accusation levelled is the imposition of a Western capitalistic ideology. The example used in the trial is that of a nurse with medicine to treat a patient, but unwilling to give it because he doesn’t have the money. Has world debt changed the way people think, and changed their value system? I remain sceptical on this point, but certainly the system in place hinders people to act how they otherwise would.
The irony of the trial is how western it is, with the judges in their robes and following a rigid court system. This is illustrated when an African witness is thrown out for speaking out of turn. His rebuttal to this dismissal, the incomprehensible political jargon, and the complicated court system is to sing an untranslated African song which encapsulates the feelings of sorrow and pain felt by the unrepresented, uneducated and forgotten Africans.
Background to the trial is the story of a young couple living in the building next to the courtyard, Mélé, a nightclub singer and her unemployed husband Chaka. Lack of opportunities and help for them and their baby; puts a strain on their relationship and paints a bleak vision for their future. (SPOILER ALERT) Seeing no way out and an impending break in their relationship, Chaka takes his own life. His funeral is held on the very site of the trial, seeing this one can’t help but wonder if this signifies the end for Africa?
Bamako is a visually uninspiring film; highlighting the trial and the subsidiary narratives to carry you along. This may be a work of fiction but its content is disturbing fact, as the film gives the following statistics:
- 50 million African children will die in the next five years
- 3 million Africans will die of malaria in the next 12 months;
- Africa’s debt stood at $220 billion in 2003
The stark realities of the African situation and the blame of aid organisations are the driving force of this film, which is a much needed story in still troubled times.
The next Bradford African Film Festival free screening is Molaade (2004). The screening is on Friday 10th Feb (tonight) at the University of Bradford at 18:30.
For more information look at my prior blog here or visit the festivals facebook event here.
Jamie Cross is Comms Manager for the @degucollective, film festival connoisseur, professional box office lackey, glasses wearer and ginger beard grower. Follow him on twitter @jamiecross
If you have any film related stories, articles, reviews with a twist, etc, contact The Culture Vulture’s film editor Mike McKenny on mike.mckenny1983@gmail.com or find him on Twitter @DestroyApathy