Recovering Lost African Film Classics: Towards a more complex history of African cinema

著名的、不该被忽视的非洲电影制作人在1960年的《S-1970年的S》中拍摄的一些早期职业生涯电影已经默默无闻，现在很少在非洲或西方的电影院或电影节上放映。由于难以接近，这些作品在非洲电影史上经常被省略或抹杀。在某些情况下，这导致了对这些电影制作人的发展、职业生涯的相当删节的描述，遗漏了他们创作演变的重要方面；例如，塞内加尔著名电影制作人奥斯曼·塞姆贝内(Taaw，1970)的某些关键电影现在很少放映，基本上没有出现在评论作品中。在其他情况下，遗漏对对非洲电影制作的批判性理解的伤害要大得多，因为它实际上导致了某些导演和电影风格在整个非洲电影中处于边缘地位；例如，尼日利亚电影制作人穆斯塔法·阿拉桑(Mustapha Alassane，1966)和科特迪瓦电影制作人Desire eCare(Concerto Pour un Exil，1968)的电影非常重要，但现在被忽视了。尼日利亚电影制作人穆斯塔法·阿拉桑(Mustapha Alassane，1966)和科特迪瓦电影制作人Desire eCare(Concerto Pour un Exil，1968)提供了美学和一般性系列的证据-仿冒、喜剧、诗意现实主义-在20世纪70年代和80年代的大部分时间里，这些电影都被排除在关于非洲电影的主导批评范式之外。这些电影将作为2006年6月在爱丁堡举行的非洲电影节(AIM)的一部分上映。在实际操作中，该项目包括确定四部“丢失的非洲经典影片”、胶片拷贝的位置，并安排将拷贝和观看拷贝运送到爱丁堡。在某些情况下，只有一个电影拷贝幸存下来，或者没有英文字幕，或者它们的质量非常差。该项目将安排英文字幕的制作，要么监督现有法语字幕翻译成英语，要么将电影中的原始对白翻译成英文。作为AIM的一部分，这些电影将以新创建的英文字幕放映。将编制一份详细的大纲和制作信息目录，并与英文字幕一起在网上发布，使这些电影可供其他讲英语的非洲电影学者学习，并纳入世界各地其他以英语为母语的非洲电影节。因此，这些电影将向包括学生、理论家、评论家和普通公众在内的广大观众提供。一些著名的非洲电影学者将被邀请参加一个圆桌讨论会，讨论这些在奥尔德节期间“失落的经典”，以衡量这些被否定的作品的重要性。圆桌会议的与会者将被邀请将他们的发言写成文章，然后项目协调员将寻求将这些文章作为该领域一家领先期刊的特刊发表。这一出版物将是对该领域的一次重大干预，汇集了一批重要学者的工作，以辩论非洲电影的演变，并重新评估从这一系列电影作品的截断历史中出现的理论和批评范式。AIM显然具有重要的艺术和公众意识，将这些丢失的非洲经典作品作为电影节的一部分，也将确认其作为一项重大研究活动的重要性，对撰写非洲电影史和质疑非洲电影批评中的关键假设具有重要影响。结合由此产生的研究成果，该项目将使人们能够对非洲国家电影制作的早期发展提供关键和揭示的见解，清华大学提供了新的批判性视角，并开辟了新的研究途径。

A number of early career films made in the 1960's-1970's by both prominent and undeservedly neglected African filmmakers have fallen into obscurity and are now rarely screened either in cinemas or in festivals in Africa or the West. Due to their inaccessibility, these works are often omitted or brushed over in African film histories. In certain cases, this has led to a rather truncated account of the development of these filmmakers, careers, omitting significant aspects of their creative evolution; for example, certain key films by the well-known Senegalese filmmakers Ousmane Sembene (Taaw, 1970) ad Djibril Diop Mambety 'Contras' City, 1969; Badou Boy, 1970) are now rarely shown and are largely absent from critical works. In other cases, the omission is much more harmful to the critical understanding of African filmmaking, as it has in effect led to the relegation of particular directors and film styles to a marginal position within African cinema as a whole; e.g. hugely important but now overlooked films by Nigerian filmmaker Mustapha Alassane ( Le Retour de l'Aventurier, 1966) and Ivorian filmmaker Desire Ecare (Concerto pour un exil, 1968) provide evidence of an aesthetic and generic range - pastiche, comedy, poetic realism - that were excluded from the dominant critical paradigms concerning African cinema for much of the 1970's and 1980's.These films will be screened as part of Africa in Motion (AiM), an African Film Festival to be held in Edinburgh in June 2006. In practical terms, the project involves identifying four 'lost African classics', the location of the film prints and arranging transport of the prints and viewing copies to Edinburgh. In some cases only one film print survives and, either no English subtitles are in existence, or they are of very poor quality. The project will arrange the production of English subtitles, either by overseeing the translation of existing French subtitles into English or the translation of the original dialogue in the films. These films will be screened with their newly created English subtitles as part of AiM. A catalogue of detailed synoposes and production information will be complied and published on the web along with the English subtitles, making these films available for study by other Anglophone African film scholars, as well as for inclusion in other Anglophone African film festivals the world over.These films will thus become available to a wide audience, including students, theorists, critics and the general public. A number of leading African film scholars will be invited to take part in a roundtable discussion on these 'lost classics' during the Festival in ordet o gauge the importance of these negloected works. The participants in the roundtable will be invited to write up their interventions as articles, which the project co-ordinators will then seek to publish as a special issue of a leading journal in the field. This publication would constitute a hugely significant intervention in the field, bringing together the work of an important group of scholars in order to debate the evolution of African cinema, and to reassess the theoratical and critical paradigms that have emerged from the truncated history of this body of film production.AiM clearly has an important artistic and public awareness dimension, and the inclusion of these lost African classics as part of the festival will also confirm its significance as a major research event with important implications both for the writing of African film history, and for the questioning of key assumptions in African film criticism. Taken together with the resulting research outputs, the project will allow crucial and revealing insights into the early development of cinema production in African countries, thu offering new critical perspectives and opening new avenues for research.