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It's 2003. The Kenyan government has just promised free education for all. Kimani Maruge is thrilled, because now he can finally learn how to read and write. Kimani Maruge limps to the school gates and asks to be admitted to the school. The teachers laugh, and send him away. Why?
Because Maruge is 84 years old.

"The First Grader" is the true story of an old man who wants nothing more than to learn to read and write after never being able to afford school. Despite his being turned away, Maruge continues to show up to the school everyday, finally winning over headmaster Jane Obinchu.

In between his present battle of fighting for his right to an education against the parents and administrators determined to kick Maruge out of the school, we learn about Maruge's horrific past as a Mau Mau veteran, a man who fiercely battled for the independence of his country. He witnessed his entire family murdered before his eyes. He was held in detention camps for years and brutally tortured (beat, whipped, toes chopped off, sharp pencils jammed inside his ears).

I popped in the 2005 film "The Constant Gardener" into the DVD player, not really expecting much. By the end of the movie I was still not impressed, but I can't deny that the film left me thinking about, as one reviewer put it, "...how the world leaves Africa behind."

Justin (Ralph Fiennes) is a calm and reticent diplomat in Kenya. His wife Tessa (Rachel Weisz) is a feisty, passionate activist. Rumors run rampant, and Justin believes that his wife is having an affair with her Kenyan colleague. But when Tessa is brutally murdered, Justin discovers the real motive behind her death. She was working to uncover a global conspiracy: the illegal, unethical testing (with lethal side effects) that pharmaceutical companies were doing on innocent, unknowing Kenyans, and the organizations, governments and individuals that helped them do it. It is said that the film is based on true events that occurred in Nigeria in the mid 90s. Maybe so, but I would not be surprised to learn that this sort of thing had/has been going on for years in numerous other underdeveloped African countries.

To be frank, "The Constant Gardner" is just too Hollywood for me. If true, this conspiracy is absolutely horrific and deplorable. I wanted to know more; I wanted to know the truth. Unfortunately, all the Hollywood explosions and high speed chases sort of ruined it all for me. I also found it strange and ironic that, in a film that portrays how the "rich, white" world abused Kenyans, that not a single one of the film's protagonist was an African. I think that if this story were made into an investigative documentary, it would have been a much more interesting and powerful film (though unfortunately probably wouldn't have made a dime).

I'd be lying if I said that I didn't cry in the film. There were a couple really heartbreaking scenes. In one, Justin has just arrived on a plane dropping off food and supplies to a refugee camp. Soon after, the camp is attacked by rebels. The violent scene that follows includes rebels heartlessly shooting anyone that gets in their way, women being raped in front of their families, children running and screaming while the rebels chase and capture them to become child soldiers. In another scene, still during the rebel attack, all the white aid workers are whisked away on a plane. When one tries to bring a young Kenyan girl with him on the plane, a girl who has been by the aid worker's side since day one, the pilot refuses. The man and the pilot argue back and forth over the girl. Quickly and quietly, the girl simply jumps off the plane with this sad look on her face, as if saying "I know my place. I know I'm not wanted in your world." Within two minutes the aid worker apologizes for the scene he caused and forgets about the girl.

My appreciation of these two scenes had nothing to do with the film's direction or cinematography. Instead I considered these scenes, a daily occurrence in Africa, as a reminder of how damn fortunate and lucky I am. I easily could have been like the girl in the above scene, a child whose only misfortunate was to be born in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the "wrong" skin color. Especially during the ridiculous hustle and bustle of the holiday season, the hundreds of dollars spent on frivolous gifts, it's nice to be reminded to simply appreciate life.  

Interview with David Pace Winner, Daylight/CDS Photo Awards Work-in-Process Prize.  The full interview is here.  Very interesting.  Great photos.  Look carefully... in one of them a guy is wearing a typical full-on Barack Obama shirt!

The images in Friday Night seem formally quite different from your other work, such as Re: Collections, or even the series Kiosks and Market Day from Burkina Faso. Would you agree?

You are quite right that the images in Friday Night are different from my other work. I am by nature very formal in my approach to composition. I favor simplicity and symmetry in an attempt to foreground my subjects, whether they are people or objects, and emphasize their similarities and differences. This is clear in the Re: Collections project and in the Kiosks portfolio. Both are classic typologies in the tradition of August Sander and the Bechers. I think my African portraits fall into this category as well.

But I also like to experiment with the element of chance and challenge myself to move outside my comfort zone. That is what is behind Friday Night. I am literally shooting in the dark. I can see my primary subjects dimly, but the background of each image is unseen until my flash fires. Everyone is in constant motion, including myself, so every image is a surprise. The juxtaposition of contorted bodies, hands and feet, shadows and expressions is not something one can predict.

Another thing that distinguishes Friday Night from my other work is that I am an active participant in the process rather than an objective observer. I am caught up in the music, moving and sweating alongside the other dancers, reacting and interacting. This was not possible the first two or three times I visited Bereba. I had to get to know the villagers and earn their trust. I now feel very much at home in the village and an insider at the dance. Everyone expects me to make photographs and they are delighted with the results. I should add that I take back and distribute all the images that I make on each subsequent trip. I have more than 500 prints that I'll be handing out when I visit Bereba in December.

Read the story at RFI.

Longtemps considérés comme des arts primitifs et sans valeur en terme de civilisation, les arts africains ont finalement eu droit de citer au musée de Louvre à Paris. Une salle est même dédiées à une collection de plusieurs objets africains qui désormais est exposée au musée de Louvre.C'est une salle riche en diversité que j'ai eu l'occasion de visiter. Les objets qui y sont exposés ont été offerts par plusieurs pays africains dont le Burkina Faso

Elisee writes:

J'ai eu l'occasion de regardez "Paris mon paradis" un documentaire de la Burkinabè Eléonore Yaméogo, qui décrit la misère des immigrés africains dans la ville de Paris. Des témoignages poignants et à visage découvert, révélant la vraie vie de beaucoup d'africains qui, arrivés à Paris ont été confrontés à la dure réalité. Des africains qui ont quitté leur "pauvreté" pour se retrouver dans une misère totale à Paris.

I had the opportunity to see "Paris mon paradis" (Paris, My Paradise), a documentary by Burkinabè Eleanor Yaméogo describing the plight of African immigrants in Paris. Poignant, with the subjects' uncensored faces revealing the true lives of many Africans who arrived in Paris forced to face the harsh reality. Africans who have left their "poverty," only to find themselves in total misery in Paris.

Some FAVL friends got together last night to watch Togetheness Supreme, a film from Kenya directed by the very cosmopolitant Nathan Collett.  It's a laudable production that mostly uses Kenyans as crew, and Kibera residents as actors. (Kibera is perhaps the largest shantytown in Africa, in the heart of Nairobi.)  The story is based on the experiences of a Kibera resident, Evans Kamau (who appears in the film as "third policeman"!) during 2007, leading up the tragic violence of the Dec. 2007 elections in Kenya.

When part of the point of the film is precisely to celebrate the process of making the film, and the inclusion and learning that goes on, it seems somewhat unfair to launch into a critique.  So I'll say that I enjoyed a lot of the film- nice visuals throughout, the first 30 min had great editing and attention to setting the scene, the soundtrack is excellent, the documentary footage of post-election violence is interesting...  The story itself starts off pretty good, and the actor who plays Otieno is quite a screen presence... with a good story and more training he could be someone to watch!  Go in with moderate expectations and you will be rewarded with a good 90 min. cinematic experience.

Last night I checked out the documentary "When China Met Africa," by Nick and Marc Francis. The film followed several Chinese families and companies working in Zambia, including a family that has just bought a farm and a collaborative effort between a Chinese construction company and the government of Zambia to improve the longest road in Africa. While I enjoyed the film and had been particularly interested in seeing it given all the debate surrounding China's investment in certain parts of Africa that the U.S. won't invest in due to a concern for the disrespect of human rights, I was also, for the same reason, somewhat disappointed by it. I guess I was expecting more focus on the potential rewards and disadvantages of such investment as well as the morality debate. While these were touched on a bit, the film mostly focused on the rather routine business of working a farm or building a road (and the sometimes strained cross-cultural interactions). Lots of scenes of African workers waiting to be paid and complaining about being poorly treated and their Chinese bosses telling them they don't work hard enough and refusing to pay them.