2008 Woodie Awards
Miami campuses to host traveling Africana film fest
Stephanie Petropoulos
Issue date: 3/23/07 Section: Campus
Miami University is bringing a little piece of Africa to Ohio.
Starting next week, Miami is hosting an Africana Film Festival where students from all three campuses will have the opportunity to watch 17 films from 11 different African nations.
The debut festival is meant to help expose Miami students to diverse cultures through films, according to Babacar Camara, associate professor of black world studies and French at Miami University's Middletown campus.Â
"This is a much needed event and a great opportunity for promoting Africana, supporting interaction and collaboration across disciplines, and enhancing diversity on campus," Camara said. "I believe the festival will offer a unique platform for conveying African artistic styles and craft in film."
Although many films are going to be shown, the central theme of identity will run throughout all of them.
"The theme is based on the reality that post-colonial Africa defies its own continental borders," Camara said. "It means traditions and modernity overlap to produce new identities."
The films all reflect the individual personalities and ideas of the filmmakers, and yet are tied together by common themes.
"These transitional visions of Africa … challenge Africa as a monolithic site of origin and authenticity," Camara said. "Themes of alienations, daily life, prostitution, gays, women and children not only stress individual creativity rather than a fidelity to negritude - the affirmation of black cultural values - but also reflect African filmmakers' desire to transcend the national and reach the continental, and eventually be universal."
Mary Jane Berman, director of Miami's Center for American and World Cultures Center, said this festival is very important to have at Miami because it focuses so specifically on Africa.
"The media tends to emphasize only the negative attributes of the continent like the genocides and we also associate Africa with its natural beauty," Berman said. "Our ideas are therefore very limited and misrepresent African peoples. This is an opportunity to enlighten the community about the positive creative accomplishments of contemporary peoples of Africa."
Starting next week, Miami is hosting an Africana Film Festival where students from all three campuses will have the opportunity to watch 17 films from 11 different African nations.
The debut festival is meant to help expose Miami students to diverse cultures through films, according to Babacar Camara, associate professor of black world studies and French at Miami University's Middletown campus.Â
"This is a much needed event and a great opportunity for promoting Africana, supporting interaction and collaboration across disciplines, and enhancing diversity on campus," Camara said. "I believe the festival will offer a unique platform for conveying African artistic styles and craft in film."
Although many films are going to be shown, the central theme of identity will run throughout all of them.
"The theme is based on the reality that post-colonial Africa defies its own continental borders," Camara said. "It means traditions and modernity overlap to produce new identities."
The films all reflect the individual personalities and ideas of the filmmakers, and yet are tied together by common themes.
"These transitional visions of Africa … challenge Africa as a monolithic site of origin and authenticity," Camara said. "Themes of alienations, daily life, prostitution, gays, women and children not only stress individual creativity rather than a fidelity to negritude - the affirmation of black cultural values - but also reflect African filmmakers' desire to transcend the national and reach the continental, and eventually be universal."
Mary Jane Berman, director of Miami's Center for American and World Cultures Center, said this festival is very important to have at Miami because it focuses so specifically on Africa.
"The media tends to emphasize only the negative attributes of the continent like the genocides and we also associate Africa with its natural beauty," Berman said. "Our ideas are therefore very limited and misrepresent African peoples. This is an opportunity to enlighten the community about the positive creative accomplishments of contemporary peoples of Africa."
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