Olivier Barlet Dossier: FESPACO 2023 / 2: Women in African Film

• Published in: Black camera : the newsletter of the Black Film Center/Archives Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 255 - 265
• Main Author: Barlet, Olivier
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bloomington Indiana University Press 01.10.2023
• Subjects: African cinema; Competition; Female gaze; Females; Male gaze; Men; Motion pictures; Patriarchy; Women; Mali; Algeria
• ISSN: 1536-3155; 1947-4237
• DOI: 10.2979/blackcamera.15.1.18

Patriarchal Order Destabilized Cinema continues to fiag up issues affecting women in the hope of desta-bilizing societies' deep-rooted patriarchy, and Choisis-moi (Amchilini) (dir. Kader Allamine, 2023, Chad) (feature-length documentary competition) is fascinating in this respect. Ribeiro creates a compelling, horrific, yet poetic vision, laden with bitterness.4 In their first feature-length film, La Dernière reine (2022, Algeria) (competition), Damien Ounouri and Adila Bendimerad also focus on a historical, almost legendary character whose existence is only recog-nized by certain historians. The film parallels and sets in motion two themes-maternal instinct and political necessity-through a female figure whose determi-nation shines out despite her vulnerability due to being abandoned by the king. Depicting how such female figures break with tradition serves a political purpose in a country that has always minimized women's contributions in the liberation struggle so as not to accord them equality5 Here we are light-years from the academicism that diluted Fadhma n Soumer (2014, Algeria), Belkacem Hadjadj's film devoted to the Kabyle heroine of the resis-tance movement against French occupation (Etalon dargent at FESPACO 2015).6 Consigned to a harem, the second Queen Zaphira is everything but consensual.