John Kariuki
20 September 2008
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Nairobi — This is the season of international film festivals where directors are showcasing their new productions in the hope of winning audiences and awards for their productions.
Among such works is a 118-minute Cuban documentary film titled Cuba: An African Odyssey, which has been screening at various African film festivals.
The film, directed by Jihan El Tahri, outlines the involvement of Cuba in the African independence struggle and its support for revolutionaries in the continent.
Che Guevara's sojourn in the Congo in the 1960s and Cuba's support for Guinean revolutionary Amalcar Cabral beside the larger military intervention in Angola -- where it deployed 450,000 soldiers to help fight off the troops of the South African apartheid regime -- are all featured in the film.
Cuba's role in Angola is considered a major factor in bringing about the fall of apartheid, as Cuba was the first country outside Africa that Nelson Mandela visited upon release from detention.
This is the second film by a Cuban on Africa's political awakening of the 1960s. The first movie, Patrice, by Raoul Peck, is about the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the former Belgian Congo.
Patrice was a heavy indictment of the role played by Western powers in the assassination of Lumumba and a harrowing depiction of the brutality of the Belgian administration in the former colony.
The new film, tipped by some as likely to inspire more interest in the Africa of the 1960s, comes at a time when the international film industry is taking more than just a passing interest in Africa.
In music, there is a documentary on Senegalese superstar Youssou N'dour that is based on his visit to the island of Gorée in Senegal, which featured prominently in the slave trade.
Gorée is known as the location of the House of Slaves one of the oldest houses on the island. It is used as a tourist destination to dramatise the horrors of the slave trade throughout the Atlantic world.
The film features N'dour in a jazz music festival on the island as his way of tracing the trajectory of the slave trade to acknowledge the role of people who started their lives as slaves and their creation of one of the world's most celebrated music expressions. He adapted his songs to jazz and gospel for the event.
Equally noteworthy is an African American film titled Soul Power based on performances by several soul musicians, including the late James Brown, whose showmanship on this particular film has drawn rave reviews.
In his illustrious career, Brown had cameo roles in films, most notably Blues Brother, in which he played a preacher.
Soul Power may be the essential testimony on film to his great talent. As he would have it, he's bad!
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