Nollywood set to show off in Paris

Nigeria’s 21-year-old film industry is considered the second largest in the world; a profitable movie-making machine that churns out about 1000 films annually. Nollywood movies enjoy a wide audience outside the continent. This month, seven feature-length films will be screened at the annual NollywoodWeek in Paris. The film festival runs from May 30 to June 2 at L’Arlequin Theatre. Here’s the line-up:

Phone Swap by Kunle Afolayan

Akin and Mary bump into each other at an airport and mistakenly swap phones, which results in a hilarious travel mix-up. Akin ends up at Mary’s destination (a family meeting) and Mary at Akin’s (a business meeting). After they realise the huge mix-up, they agree to help each other with their “new” missions using the data on their phones.

Maami by Tunde Kelani

International football star Kashimayo returns to his home country Nigeria to prepare for the 2010 World Cup. Through dreams and flashbacks, he relives his childhood: being raised by his brave but poverty-stricken single mother whom he shared an unbreakable bond with until he tries to reconnect with his father, a man with a terrible secret. Described as “a masterpiece of popular cinema” this film pulls at heartstrings and explores themes of love, melodrama, corruption and witchcraft.

Inalé by Jeta Amata & Keke Bongos

This musical tells the story of the Princess of Otukpo, Inale, and Ode who are deeply in love. Tradition dictates he must compete against other ‘suitors’ to win her hand in marriage. Ode wins these physical contests until a masked stranger arrives, putting the couple’s love to the test and exposing communal tension and conflict.

Tango with Me by Mahmood Ali-Balogun

Lola and Uzo are the perfect married couple but their lives are turned upside down when their happiest days become their darkest. This award-winning film proves love conquers all.

Ijé by Chineze Anyaene

Anya is determined to chase her big dreams in Hollywood Hills but her younger sister Chioma warns her about the dark side of the American Dream. Years later, Anya is charged with killing three men, including her record-producer husband in her Hollywood mansion. Chioma travels to her sister’s side to help her, along with a young and disillusioned attorney, but cultural values collide and the notion of ‘truth’ is constantly questioned.

Man on Ground by Akin Omotoso

When Femi, a young Nigerian man, disappears while living as a refugee in South Africa, his brother Ade, a London broker, comes to Johannesburg to find him. A riot breaks out while he’s in the township and he has to take shelter with Femi’s employer. The film explores the brothers’ estranged and complicated relationship against a backdrop of xenophobic violence.

Last Flight to Abuja by Obi Emelonye

A flight from Lagos to Abuja goes horribly wrong when the plane teeters on the brink of disaster and passengers’ lives flash before their eyes. As the pilot fights to prevent a tragedy, the passengers on board reflect on how they came to be on that fateful flight. Will they survive?

Sources: IMDb, OkayAfrica

12 years ago

Ghanaian students’ rocketing ambitions

Their project might not sound like much: On Wednesday college students in Ghana launched a tiny model of a satellite the size of a Coke can on a big yellow balloon.

It went up to a height of 165 metres and then came back down attached to a parachute.

A Deployable CanSat floats back down to earth on a parachute following its test launch. (AP)

Ambitious organisers in the West African country – who recently launched the Ghana Space Science and Technology Centre – see the test as a sign of bigger things to come.

“We hope that this practical demonstration of what can be done by students like them will generate more enthusiasm, fire up their imagination to come up with more creative things, and show that it’s possible that they’ll one day be able to launch their own real satellite into orbit,” said Prosper Kofi Ashilevi, director of the space centre which marked its one-year anniversary earlier this month.

The effort has drawn some skepticism, acknowledged Samuel H. Donkor, the president of All Nations University.

“They think it is a pipe dream, a waste of money,” said Donkor, who has directed $50 000 to the programme.

But Ashilevi, the space centre director, said it was essential for local universities to train students with a passion for space.

“Some wonder why we couldn’t concentrate on our problems of water, sanitation, health, all those things. I categorically disagree,” he said. “Space will help African countries who are very serious with it to leapfrog their development because it cuts across all sectors of the economy.”

Experts say Ghana is probably a good five years or more from developing its own operational satellites, which could one day be used to confront everything from natural disasters to the smuggling of natural resources.

Wednesday’s project, though, started at All Nations University with just a big balloon to carry aloft the miniature model of a satellite, known as a Deployable CanSat. The device reached a height of about 165 metres, just shy of the students’ 200-metre goal.

Students prepare the balloon used to conduct a test launch of a Coke-can sized satellite at All Nations University in Koforidua, Ghana. (AP)

The mini-satellite. (AP)

Owen Hawkins, business development manager for Surrey Satellite Technology in the United Kingdom, called Wednesday’s project “very, very exciting”.

“Ghana is quite a small country and they’re already punching above their weight by doing things like that,” Hawkins said.

It was the first time Ghana has sent a Deployable CanSat into the air, said Manfred Quarshie, director of the Intelligent Space Systems Laboratory at All Nations University College in Koforidua.

Six students spent three months preparing the model, outfitting it with sensors, cameras and Global Positioning System technology, Quarshie said.

It was not without its fair share of challenges. The students initially hoped to launch the CanSat with a rocket, but discovered authorities would not give them permission to import one.

“They think you are going to use it as a missile, like a terrorist,” said Benjamin Bonsu, the lab’s 29-year-old project manager.

They eventually settled on lifting the CanSat with a balloon.

As it floated back to the ground, the device recorded temperature and air pressure readings that were read aloud to the cheering crowd of about 100 students and local officials. The descent lasted less than 30 seconds.

A second device failed to deploy, but Donkor, the university president, said that hitch had not detracted from the event.

“The students are quite excited and very happy,” he said. “There is a lot of enthusiasm throughout the country that we are even daring to do something like this.” – Sapa-AP

12 years ago

Jozi taxi diaries

“God’s case, no appeal” is the name of a long-past-retirement-age taxi in Chinua Achebe’s novel, No Longer at Ease. This pithy aphorism is right up there with “We mend broken hearts” and “Don’t steal, the government hates competition”, as freely dispensed taxi-wisdom goes in many African cities. A fan of most things offside, I feel morally obliged to like “God’s case, no appeal”, which is also a pretty appropriate description of Johannesburg taxi drivers, who are second only to the Gupta family as a law unto themselves.

There are many sins that can be laid upon Johannesburg taxi drivers’ heads. Humour is not one of them. Except for this one driver my friend Vuyo told me about: his taxi had the usual sticker asking passengers to refrain from paying with large notes, but somehow one morning there were lots of R50 and R100 notes on board, which left the passenger seated next to the driver – the fare collector – stuck for change. The taxi driver quietly noted the problem.

A short drive on, he casually turned into a garage, parked, and walked into the express shop with the batch of notes. He emerged with a plastic bag filled with random groceries, which he proceeded to distribute along with the respective change to the passengers, deducting the taxi fare and the cost of whatever random item he had bought them. Exclamations flew around as non-smokers received packs of cigarettes and school children got dish-washing liquid. Two of the luckier passengers received a piece of New Lifebuoy Total and a nondescript packet of condoms, which promised total hygiene and total pleasure respectively. “You must read that sticker,” he said, easing out of the garage.

(Pic: Oupa Nkosi, M&G)

I suppose taxi commuting would be a lot less stressful if all taxi drivers had this dry sense of humour. Sadly, they don’t, as I once learnt across the road from Luthuli House in Jo’burg.

Its illustrious history as the headquarters of the African National Congress (ANC) aside, Luthuli House’s other claim to fame is that former ANC Youth League president Julius Malema once defended its revolutionary honour with choice expletives – including that classic Malemaism ‘tjatjarag’ – which sent the revolutionary house trending on cyberspace while klevas churned rib-cracking spoofs and soundtracks to Malema’s gallantry on YouTube.

For me though, Luthuli House brings back less-than-revolutionary memories of a taxi ride gone wrong in 2005, which ended with an irate taxi driver screeching to a sudden halt on a street curb near Luthuli House, jumping out and pacing near the taxi as he quarrelled about thieving passengers. I was one of the said thieving passengers. On this day, I learnt the value of one rand. And that a rand is not just a rand.

It was after 11am and I was on a taxi from Soweto to Braamfontein for a noon meeting. As usual, the taxi stopped at edge of the CBD, where Noord Street taxi rank-bound taxis part ways with Bree Street taxi rank-bound taxis. At this point, unless all passengers are going to one taxi rank, taxis generally swap passengers in a loose ‘division of labour’ arrangement to avoid driving to both taxi ranks. So, the Noord Street taxi rank passengers moved to another taxi, while two of us (myself and a middle-aged lady) were joined by several other Bree Street taxi rank passengers from the other taxi. A short ride on, the middle-aged lady asked the taxi driver for her change.

“How much?”

“One rand.”

“Didn’t everyone get back their change?”

“No, I haven’t received my change.”

After repeatedly asking who had the missing rand to no avail, the driver suddenly braked, jumped out and banged the door shut, too angry to drive on. Seemingly, this had happened before and he was simply fed up with this emerging sticky-fingers tendency in his taxi. Some commuters protested about being unfairly delayed, especially as they had switched taxis after the monies had been collected.This left me and the aggrieved passenger as the chief ‘suspects’. Except I was certain I hadn’t handled any change. And the lady was certain she had not received her change. And she wanted her rand back.

As 12pm drew closer, I contemplated getting off the taxi and walking the short distance to Bree Street taxi rank and over Nelson Mandela Bridge to Braamfontein for my meeting. A second thought crossed my mind as the driver ranted about our theft: maybe I should just offer to replace the damned rand. But something stopped me from making either of these faux pas. It occurred to me that, despite their annoyance, none of my fellow passengers was offering to replace the missing rand or take the short walk to Bree. So, I impatiently watched the spectacle of our ‘thieving selves’ packed outside Luthuli House, until the taxi driver – apparently deciding he’d rather be rid of us – got back in the taxi, gave the lady her rand, and drove on, covering the short distance to Bree with an angry rant about cheap passengers who stole one rand. What kind of fourth-rate thieves were we anyway? Serious thieves busied themselves blowing up ATMs and hijacking cash-in-transit vehicles for proper monies, not pinching one rand coins from underpaid taxi drivers.

It later dawned on me that my fellow passengers obviously realised – and respected – the fact that there was more than a rand at stake. This was not about a rand. There was a principle at stake, and the potential corrosion of the implicit trust between a taxi driver and his passengers. This explains why, unlike the Kenyan conductor or the Ghanaian driver’s mate who collects fares, Johannesburg commuters pass on their fares all the way to the passenger seated next to the driver, who in turn processes the change and gives the driver the total collection for the entire taxi load of people. It wasn’t just a rand at stake. This system and its implicit trust were at stake. To date, I still don’t believe it was a case of theft; it was more likely an inadvertent mix-up of change. But in such a well-oiled system, there is no room for inadvertent mistakes. Not even one-rand mistakes.

Naturally, I missed my meeting that day. But I learnt the value of a rand.

12 years ago

Kinshasa’s best-kept music secret

Nathalie is a single mum who struggles to clothe her little boy and pay the rent. She plays the flute and the sax. Josephine gets up at 4.30am every day to sell omelettes at the market. She is in the chorus. Papy is a part-time mechanic who also runs his own pharmacy. He plays the tuba. Josef is a freelance electrician, a kind of African version of the Robert De Niro character in the film Brazil. He also runs his own hair salon and plays the viola.

Nathalie, Josephine, Papy and Josef are adepts of the Congolese art of débrouillardise, a French word that means “making ends meet” or “surviving”. For most of the day, they do whatever they must to hustle their daily bread in the Congolese capital Kinshasa, one of the biggest, noisiest and most dysfunctional cities on earth. In the early evening, they set out on a journey that often takes several hours to rehearse with the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste de Kinshasa (OSK), the only all-black symphony orchestra in the world. There they find release from their daily cares. “When I sing Beethoven’s ninth Symphony, it takes me far away,” says one of the other singers in the choir.

“They come because they’re passionate about music,” says Armand Diangienda, the man who founded the OSK almost 20 years ago. “It gives them something more in terms of confidence, of feeling capable and of being able to contribute to a collective endeavour.”

If the musicians in the OSK are masters of individual survival, the orchestra itself is an epic example of débrouillardise, of thinking the impossible and then just doing it. Diangienda lost his job as a pilot when the Fokker F-27 he used to fly across the Congo crashed into the hills above the town of Goma in 1992, killing all those on board. Luckily – for him – he was on holiday at the time. Finding himself unemployed, he rallied followers of his father’s church, the hugely popular Kimbanguiste church, and created a symphony orchestra, a strange endeavour for a confirmed reggae fan who had only a passing interest in European classical music at the time.

“We told ourselves that creating a symphony orchestra would be great because the church already had a brass band, a flute orchestra, a guitar ensemble and a number of different choirs,” Armand tells me over the phone from Kinshasa. “I couldn’t read music, but driven by my passion, and with help from my friends, I gradually learned.”

In the early days, instruments had to be borrowed or made from scratch by reverse engineering. Violin strings were concocted from bicycle brake wire. Hundreds of scores were copied out by hand, individual parts had to be deciphered by listening to the works on CD, over and over again. Music stands were cobbled together from old pieces of wood.

Despite attracting huge interest locally, the orchestra remained the city’s secret until two German film-makers, Claus Wischmann and Martin Baer, made the 2010 documentary Kinshasa Symphony, one of the most beautiful and honest portrayals of the power of music and the human spirit that I have seen in ages.

Last year, the orchestra travelled outside Africa for the first time, performing at the TED conference in California, and later in Monaco. CBS devoted an hour’s coverage to them and Peter Gabriel joined them for a gala soiree to raise funds for a music school in Kinshasa.

The Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste de Kinshasa (Pic: oskimbangu.org)

But that’s not all. Diangienda is now on his way to London to become an honorary member of the Royal Philharmonic Society, an accolade previously granted to the likes of Mendelssohn, Rossini, Wagner, Brahms and Stravinsky. “The day I was told, I had tears in my eyes,” he says.

The fact that many Congolese regard Diangienda as something of a living god has no doubt helped him to achieve the seemingly impossible. His grandfather, Simon Kimbangu, was a healer and preacher whose sermons instilled pride and self-belief in ordinary Congolese people and fear in their Belgian colonial masters. He died in 1951 after spending 30 years in prison. One of his most incendiary statements was: “The black man will become white and the white man will become black.”

For Diangienda, however, performing western classical music on the banks of the Congo river has nothing to do with turning his back on his own African culture. “Everything we’re learning by playing classical music will allow us to enrich our own music as well and immortalise it by writing it down,” he says. Diangienda, and the orchestra’s first violinist Heritier Malumbi and bassoonist Balongi, have already composed several symphonic works full of rich Congolese flavours.

“My grandfather claimed that to sing was to pray twice,” Diangienda says. “Music is already a form of spiritual wealth to us, the Kimbanguistes. But what inspires me even more is that my grandfather’s message was a universal one; a message of peace, of love, of reaching out for others and bringing people together.”

It was also a message about work, perseverance and self-respect. The stirring finale of Kinshasa Symphony sees the orchestra performing Orff’s Carmina Burana on a large piece of wasteground in front of an ecstatic local crowd. The beauty, pride and common purpose that oozes from the performance make mincemeat of the cliches of chaos and hopelessness that burden the Congo. A small but growing group of cognoscenti already know that Kinshasa is one of the most culturally dynamic and creative cities on earth. The OSK only reinforces that conviction. – Guardian News and Media 2013

12 years ago

My mother’s songs

My Mother’s Songs is set in an African landscape and examines inter-generational trauma. The film depicts a series of traumatic experiences through the eyes of several young women who are desperately trying to make sense of their existence. Tanzanian writer and director Erick Msumanje, who was recently awarded the highly-competitive Princess Grace Award for filmmaking, has indeed managed to “push the boundaries of cinematography, aesthetics, and storytelling” with his work.