EVENT. The video-on-demand platform has produced, with the support of Unesco, the “African Folktales” series, which revisits six traditional African tales.
By Baudouin Eschapasse
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« L’Africa is full of talent. This series bears witness to this… When we launched our call for projects, which aimed to make short films revisiting the cultural heritage of the continent’s traditional tales, we did not expect to receive so many scenarios. Presenting in Paris, on March 15, the series of short films co-produced by Netflix and Unesco, Tendeka Matatu confided that he had received more than 2,000 scripts. “It was not easy to select only six”, recognizes the director of the African subsidiary of the video on demand platform.
READ ALSOAfrica: six young directors highlighted by UNESCO and NetflixLike him, Audrey Azoulay, director general of the UN organization dedicated to culture and science, is full of praise for the creativity and vitality of African cinema. “It is undeniably a strength for Africa, as revealed by a report that we commissioned and which shows that this sector alone can create up to 20 million jobs on the continent”, she expresses. . A 2021 study indeed suggests that the cultural industries can constitute a possible development resource for the Maghreb countries as well as for those in the sub-Saharan zone and bring in around 20 billion dollars per year for all the economies concerned.
To support the initiative led by Netflix, the international organization has mobilized an envelope of just over 600,000 euros to “start” this series. A $25,000 prize was paid to each of the six finalists from Kenya, Mauritania, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. The institution has also contributed to the financing of each film to the tune of 75,000 dollars.
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Films with a wide palette of inspiration
Visible today in 190 countries, these short films are preparing to compete in several African competitions, starting with the sixth edition of the Kalasha International Film which begins in Nairobi on Wednesday March 29. The selected works are extremely diverse.
In Halima’s choice (Halima’s Choice), the Nigerian Korede Azeez offers nothing less than a science fiction film. It transports us to the XXIIe century in a traditional Fulani village which resists against the giants of the Net, which propose to the inhabitants an almost entirely virtualized life.
With Anyango and the Ogre (Anyango and the Ogre), the Kenyan Voline Ogutu evokes, under the guise of a children’s story, the ravages of domestic violence. In Katera of the Punishment IslandLoukman Ali discusses how single mothers have long been treated in his native Uganda.
With Cut off, Walt Mzengi Corey talks about the magic rituals used by village communities in rural areas of Tanzania to attract rain. A way of recalling, in hollow, the serious problems of drought that global warming is weighing on a large part of Africa.
The fantastic genre gives rise to a marvelous (but also terrifying, let’s face it) Mauritanian short film: Enmity Djinn, by Mohamed Echkouna, where the same family faces an evil spirit from the desert over three generations.
And in Rivers, the South African Gcobisa Yako takes us along “the river of no return” which gives its title to her film to meet a mysterious woman: half-fairy, half-witch.
So many little cinematographic gems which, despite some clumsiness at times, make us discover little-known parts of African culture.
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