Africa Film WebMeeting


Message from: ArtMattan@aol.com (african-cinema-conference@xc.org)
About: HARAMUYA & CANDOMBE

Mon, 29 Sep 1997 07:52:07 -0700 (PDT)

  • Next message: owner-viscom@xc.org: "Southern African Int'l Film and TV Market 1997"
    Originally from: <ArtMattan@aol.com>
    Originally dated: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 07:52:07 -0700 (PDT)

    ArtMattan Productions would like to announce the acquisition of two new
    titles in its library of films from the African Diaspora:

    HARAMUYA by Drissa Toure. 35mm - 87min - 1995. A co-production Burkina
    Faso/France.

    Festivals:
    FESPACO 1995, official selection Cannes 1995 "Un Certain Regard", first
    screened in the US in 1995 during the Third Annual Contemporary African
    Diaspora Film Festival in New York.

    Film Synopsis:
    Ouagadougou, its buildings and shantytowns
    Wealth in a modern town and poverty in the suburbs
    Through Fousseini -- a Muslim firmly attached to his faith and traditions
    and his family HARAMUYA draws a picture of Ouagadougou in the traps of
    modernism and traditionalism. Fousseini tries to take care of his family
    according to the old precepts and the code of honor inherited from his
    ancestors. One of his sons is a cinema projectionist and supports all the
    family against the will of his wife. The other son idles around all day
    long
    in Ouagadougou, looking for a girlfriend.

    HARAMUYA is an urban chronicle which presents a portrait gallery,
    intertwines
    situations and characters and builds up a colorful and funny mosaic: the
    keeper of the brothel who quits everything to follow her daughter, the man
    thrown in jail because he mingled goats, grass and marijuana, the Lebanese
    transport agent always on the watch for illicit trading, the corrupted
    policeman and the other honest policeman, the scheming police snitch, and
    the
    town always there.

    CANDOMBE by Rafael Deugenio. 16mm - 16min - 1993. A docu-drama from Uruguay,
    in Spanish with English subtitles.

    Festivals:
    First screened in the US in 1996 during the Fourth Annual Contemporary
    African Diaspora Film Festival in New York.

    Film Synopsis:
    More than two hundred years ago, there was an influx into Uruguay of slaves
    from Africa whom, after being freed, continued to make up the poorest and
    most marginalised strata in society. Fernado Nunez, a black man, a musician,
    and a maker of drums, sees himself as the heir to "Candombe", an important
    social and cultural legacy from his slave forefathers. The official history
    and culture of Uruguay, on the other hand, which has never acknowledged this
    contribution to the degree which it deserves, continues to marginalise
    expressions of black culture. Fernando Nunez and his friends from the
    Barrio
    Sur back street quarter of Montevideo have decided to fight to keep these
    important cultural roots alive in the consciousness of the Uruguayan people.

    For more information about these titles as well as other titles in ArtMattan
    Productions catalog, please contact us at artMattan@aol.com. Tel (212)
    749-6020, Fax (212) 316-6020.



    You may post a follow-up message or a new message. To send a reply directly to the author, you may click on the email address above.

    If you would like to submit a message using your own mail program, send it to: africa-film@mit.edu

    If you are following up this article, please include the following line at the beginning of your message:
    In-Reply-To: 199709291452.HAA12130@abraham.xc.org