From FESPACO 2011, inspirations for Kannywood
When I joined them, after the festival, on the drive back to Niamey from Ouagadougou, we exchanged ideas on how the experience in Ouagadougou could push filmmaking in Kannywood further. This week, on Wednesday, 6 April, the four of us continued the discussion about FESPACO with other Kannnywood stakeholders at an interactive session, titled “Experiences […]
When I joined them, after the festival, on the drive back to Niamey from Ouagadougou, we exchanged ideas on how the experience in Ouagadougou could push filmmaking in Kannywood further. This week, on Wednesday, 6 April, the four of us continued the discussion about FESPACO with other Kannnywood stakeholders at an interactive session, titled “Experiences of FESPACO 2011—Inspirations for Kannywood,” hosted by the Kano branch of the Goethe Institut and the Northwest zonal office of the National Film and Video Censor’s Board.
The Goethe Institut, Kano branch, is housed in the beautiful old Gidan Bi Minista, the ground floor of which, according to the Kano State History and Culture Bureau, dates from the 16th century. Recently, the Goethe Institut installed a high tech solar tracking system, the first in Kano state, and now runs the building entirely on solar power, meaning there was not a single blink in electricity during the programme. (I will focus on the exciting possibilities of solar energy in a future column). Frank Roger, director of the Kano branch, spoke to me about the Goethe Institut’s role in encouraging dialogue between Kannywood and other African cinemas. In the work of the Institut over last few years, he told me, they had seen “a lot of communication gaps between Lusophone, Francophone, and Anglophone Africa, which has its roots in colonial history.” Instead of the typical cultural centre activities of “sending experts from Germany to an African country or sending artists to a programme in Germany, much more important is the exchange between the African artists in this pan-African setting.” Roger lobbied the regional office to help sponsor Kannywood filmmakers to go to FESPACO, feeling that such an exchange would be positive to an industry that often seems “a bit isolated” from other film cultures. “Since we couldn’t send all Kano filmmakers to Ougadougou,” Roger told me, “we said, ok, please when you come back, share your experiences with those ones who are left here in Kano.”
The event was attended by around thirty Kannywood stakeholders, including Writer/critic Sanusi Shehu Daneji, Producer/Actress Rukkayya Dawayya, Producer/Actor Abubakar Hayatu, Producer/Actor Baba Karami, Director Hassan Giggs, and others. It included the screening of the documentary film Cinemas Africans, in which Malian scholar and filmmaker Manthia Diawara interviewed African filmmakers about their thoughts on the future of cinema in Africa, as well as the whimsical short film The Camera by Nigerian filmmaker Julius Morno, made with the sponsorship of the Goethe Institut.
Dr. Sarari started off the discussion by sharing his thoughts on FESPACO, emphasizing to the other Kannywood practitioners the importance of attending festivals, first to meet and build connections with other filmmakers from around the continent, but also to realize the advantages Kannywood already has. Francophone filmmakers “rely on the French government for funding and are struggling to do what we do here, but they don’t know how to do films on their own. They want to know how they can embrace the Nigerian style.” Dr. Sarari pointed out that over 40,000 people are directly employed by Kannywood, more than any other industry in Nigeria. According to NFVCB figures from the northwestern zone, “in 2010 alone, we produced 420 films,” close to 40% of the Nigerian film industry. Although average sales of a film are between 30-40 thousand copies, blockbusters sell 200-300 thousand copies. Despite the problems with piracy, if there were some way to network with traders currently selling pirated films but who are interested in selling legal copies of the work, producers would be able to sell millions of films across Niger, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Sudan, Gabon and other places where Hausa is spoken.
However, despite the large numbers of films produced and purchased by the Hausa film industry, there was no one from Kannywood with a film at the festival or there in an official capacity. Dr Sarari pointed to how filmmakers from the tiny country of Namibia were representing their country with a film at FESPACO. “We are far ahead of most film industries in Africa. Why weren’t we there?” he asked his colleagues.
Mikail Isah bin Hassan narrated how 24-48 hours before they travelled, Dr. Sarari and Nasiru B. Mohammad had convinced him to join them on the road trip to Ougadougou. He drew laughs with his description of the long journey and the disorientation of arriving in Burkina Faso, where very few people who spoke Hausa or English. He kept having to text his wife asking how to say things in French. Yet it was the “best trip of his life,” he claimed. The whole time he kept asking himself about quality and what Hausa films had to offer. Like Dr. Sarari, he described meeting with filmmakers from all over Africa, Namibia, Ghana, Cameroon, and elsewhere, some of whom worked on films with budgets worth millions of dollars. Yet they were all curious to know about Nollywood and Kannywood. He said he was a bit embarrassed to show his films to filmmakers who worked with such large budgets, but after watching it, they asked who had sponsored it. “I said, I sponsored it myself. They were surprised. With your money? Yes, with my money,” he answered. One filmmaker from Namibia took him aside and told him that he had access to funds in the millions of dollars but that he didn’t want it. He said that “I only want to set my mind as a filmmaker.” If you take that money, you have to represent someone else’s interests and put things into your film that you don’t want to put.” They give him money but they restrict his talent.
We have a good thing in Kannywood, Mikail argued, we just don’t realize it. The most important improvements, he felt the Hausa film industry could make to the quality of their films would be working on the originality of scripts, improving technicalities, and getting rid of selfish interests by coming together to work on productions. “If I have a million naira, Dr. Sarari has a million naira, Nasiru B. Mohammad has a million naira, we join our resources and improve our films by working together. It’s the only way,” he said.
The ensuing discussion with other Kannywood stakeholders was lively. Abubakar Hayatu spoke to the transnational importance of Hausa films beyond a Nigerian audience, describing how when he went to Gabon, the Hausa community there had told him that other Gabonese used to treat them with disrespect. But they claimed that because of Hausa films they stopped disrespecting them, seeing that Hausa culture had importance. Editor and cameraman Aliyu Mansur pointed out that though many of them had been to multiple festivals and training events like BOB-TV in Abuja, there had never been a debriefing session like this where they brainstormed about how they could improve the industry. Others pointed out that if before the next FESPACO, they could call together producers, they could perhaps send a larger contingent to the festival.
Although I have spoken earlier in this column about the problems I saw at FESPACO, I was encouraged by what I heard in the discussion this week. The experiences of these three Hausa filmmakers indicate that the continuing importance of the festival lies perhaps more in the informal connections made between filmmakers than the formal structures of screenings and awards. If filmmakers from all over Africa can share ideas and cooperate on co-productions with money raised from within Africa, perhaps there is hope, as I noted last week, for building a truly grassroots pan-African cinema.