They did not let him into Angola so Afro-American filmmaker Kevin Everson went just over the border to find his roots. Programmer Gertjan Zuilhof ended his African journey in Congo and said goodbye to the unpaved continent.
Leaving Mozambique for Congo I spent some time in the Maputo airport. Wondering around I took a wrong turn and an airport worker showed me the way to a private plane. Maybe not for me I said and showed him my ticket. So much for security.
There is not much local art of any quality to be seen in Africa. For good African art you have to go to the museums of Paris and London. And for sure in airports you only see airport art, specially made for the tax free gift shops and suspiciously similar in all different airports. But in the Maputo airport I waited for hours next to a fine and big piece of Makonde woodcarving. Not nicely lighted so my picture is just good enough.
Makonde Sculpture in Maputo Airport
Like in most African cities in Brazzaville, the capital of the smaller of the two Congo’s, you can see the scars of wars and disasters. Every now and then during my stay somebody would point out a ruin and say what the heap of stone and concrete would have been before the war. The civil war ended more than ten years ago, but still you see occasional army trucks or tanks in the middle of the street.
After Victory, Brazzaville, Congo
I did not have many contacts in Brazzaville before I came, but one of them came down to pick me up from the airport. It was the young and witty Amour Sauveur. I would not see much of him during my stay since he went to Cameroon for a work-shop (organized by Marc-Andre Schmachtel, whom we got to know in the first chapters of this blog), but he introduced me to his friends and they proved of great value. On the way from the airport we got stuck in the middle of a riot and at one moment the taxi was full of teargas. The smell and taste brought me back to my student days.
Amour is a writer and director who works with a group of actors and filmmakers who call themselves Les Boulistes. They make funny short comedies for a local television station.
On the set of Les Boulistes HIV Pub
Amour is standing on the right in this picture. He is wearing the green colors of the national soccer team, to honor his father who was a soccer professional. Amour is thinking hard to solve a problem in the mise-en scène. His sound man is comforting him. Camera woman Nadège Batou thinks with him. The man on the left I will introduce in a minute. It looks very serious, but no doubt they try to work at a joke. Amour and his little group re-invented the comedy style of the beginning of cinema and their series of short comedies show progress in technique and story telling with every episode. You will be able to check that in Rotterdam because I asked Amour to bring all his episodes to the festival.
Nadege shooting in Amour's courtyard, Brazzaville
Just before he left for Cameroon I saw Amour shooting a short anti-hiv film (half of the films shot in Africa have to do with hiv by the way, since the aid organizations have money to spend). He made the little ‘commercial’ in the same way as his Boulistes shorts and with the same people, so I had a good chance to see how they work. Well, they work fast, they work with improvisation and they have fun while they work. Really nice to see.
Amour shot the whole thing in less than a day and he did it in his own neighborhood and even in his own courtyard. So this production had no transport problems.
Boom operator for movie by Amour Sauveur Memy
Light is no problem when you work outdoors in Africa, so I don’t think they even have any lights. Maybe also no tripod but that could be an artistic choice. The boom for the microphone did not come from a shop, that is for sure.
Boulistes Actors
A few of the fixed actors of the group. They work with Amour and Nadège all the time, so they know what to do and what not to do. So here they just pose and sit in the shade till they are asked to go in front of the camera again. For a filmmaker like Amour, who seems to think out a lot on the spot, a group of people that trust him is of great value. So he is wise to stick with his regulars.
I went to the Republic of Congo with Kevin Jerome Everson. The man with the camera on the left in third picture. Kevin wanted to go to Angola. He had the idea his roots were their. How difficult Angola can be you can read two blogs ago (El Dorado, number 35) and after that it turned out to be as difficult to get the films out of the country. So Kevin (and he tried hard) did not get a visa and decided to go to neighboring Congo.
Kevin Everson and Nadege Batou at musician's funeral ceremony
After Amour left his camera woman Nadège took over. Nadège turned out to be much more than a camera woman. She is the producer, organizer and contact person you need in this kind of places. She knew everybody and everybody knew her. So meeting the other filmmakers of Congo was not difficult at all. She knew the people of the French Culturel Centre and she knew all the filmmakers so soon after we decided we met them all.
Meeting with the Brazzaville filmmakers. Right at the back in blue shirt Maestro Sebastien Kamba
Most of them were young and aspiring, but we also met founding father of Congolese cinema Sebastien Kamba. Kamba will be presented in the general Where is Africa program in Rotterdam.
Water Skiing on the River Congo
In his American work Kevin focuses on the image of labor of black American people, but for his first African film he wanted to show people in their time of leisure. For sure this also gives another idea of Africa than we normally get. No hunger. No poverty. But the decadence of water-skiing, a sport that even makes golf or tennis into the pastime of the middle class. He liked the idea that on the Congo river (yes, the river of Heart of Darkness) you could see two capitol cities. The only place in the world with a view like that. A Congolese water skier should make the image complete. Tough job for a producer you would say (the river is a border and how to get water skies in Congo?), but Nadège found the skies with a French restaurant owner and somehow the border could be ignored. A Congolese who could ski we did not find but we found a teacher and someone who wanted to learn. Needless to say that the days on the river belong to my most happy days in Africa.
Washing in the Congo River
Lots of things were difficult in Africa. Anything connected to money and paperwork was in fact difficult. But few things were impossible. Maybe I complained a bit too much about people not wanting to be filmed or photographed, so I should mention that a lot also did not mind or were even eager to have their picture taken.
On the shore of our by now beloved Congo river we found a group of young man washing themselves. They did not mind at all to have their pictures taken and had all the time for a dive and a chat. So I joined in to say goodbye to the river, to Congo and to Africa. For the moment.