Gail Smith
African women involved in all aspects of film – from producers and directors to grassroots organisers – will be among the delegates at Sithengi ’98. These include Zimbabwean filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga, director of Everyone’s Child, who is also the author of the critically acclaimed novel, Nervous Condition. Also attending this year are Anne Mungai, a Kenyan director and member of the Kenyan Film Producers Association, and Amy Nato Oudraggo from Burkino Faso.
South African filmmaker Seipati Bulane- Hopa, producer of the television drama Molo Fish, will be one of the judges in the newcomers competition, while Belgian filmmaker Marion Hansel, who directed The Quarry, will take part in the international director’s week.
Sithengi ’98 will also see the launch of Women of the Sun, an ambitious international project aimed at promoting the achievements of black women in film. The project grew out of a discussion between four black women filmmakers at the African Film Festival in New York this year. One of those women, Cindy Gordon, a British filmmaker based in Johannesburg, brought the idea back to South Africa.
Gordon says the project was started to provide a platform for women of colour working in film around the world, to discuss ways of dealing with marginalisation in the industry, the difficulties independent filmmakers face in raising money for their films and in getting distribution deals. African-American film-maker Julie Dash, lamenting the obstacles faced by black women filmmakers, once joked that she couldn’t even get arrested in Hollywood, let alone land a multi-million dollar film deal like Spike Lee’s Malcom X.
Gordon is at pains to point out that Women of the Sun is not another organisation, but simply a project that will be discussed with the women delegates attending Sithengi ’98. She says such initiatives tend to fail because they are brought in from outside and imposed on local situations, with little or no understanding of the real conditions under which African film-makers operate.
Rhoda Mandaza, Sithengi director, says black women working in the South African film and television industry greeted the project with a great deal of skepticism. “After every major film festival women come together and plan things and then there’s zero follow-up.” Mandaza says black women are also wary of endorsing organisations that do not acknowledge or address their needs.
The Sithengi organisers view everyone as film-makers, and do not see women as a special interest group, says Mandaza. However, in the light of issues raised in discussion with local women in film and television, and in view of the developing Southern African film and television industry, it makes sense to create a space where women can gather to talk. She says that one of the accusations leveled at the market in the past, has been that it was a white market, and Sithengi is trying to change that perception. However, she says the onus is on the women themselves to organise and take action.
Sithengi ’98 organisers have created a space for discussion in the form of the Wanawake Caf. Wanawake means women in Swahili. Mandaza says the idea behind the Wanawake Caf is to provide a space where women can talk about their experiences.
The South African chapter of Women in Film plans to have a desk in the Wanawake Caf, from which they will distribute their information and show their show-reel.
Dezi Rorich, acting director of Women in Film, says the organisation, set up in Los Angeles 20 years ago, aims to promote and inspire women in film and television. The South African chapter was established two years ago, and has received sponsorship from AME, Video Lab, and Kodak.
Rorich, who was also director of the first and second Southern African Film Markets held in Cape Town, says she’s never been compromised or experienced discrimination as a woman in the film industry. She says she feels somewhat uncomfortable with the name of her organisation, because Women in Film also has male members, and because she “dislikes militant feminists”.
Women in Film is planning a power breakfast that will focus on all aspects of production, and will feature a panel of local and international speakers. Lisa Tager, currently producing a film for Columbia Tri-Star, will be the keynote speaker and will share the platform with South African filmmakers Helena Spring and Seipati Bulane-Hopa.
With delegates coming from as far afield as Prague, San Francisco, Dar Es Salaam, Dakar, Amsterdam and Ouagadougou, the Wanawake Caf looks like it might just be the place to be at Sithengi ’98. Mandaza says she’s hoping that the Wanawake Caf will be the space for frank and open discussion among women involved in film and television, because there is still a lot of “dancing around issues of elitism, and apologising for racism in the industry”.
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