Gaston Kabore, Griot of The African Cinema

I am a storyteller, drawing water from the well of my culture:
Gaston Kabor, Griot of African Cinema

Martin, Michael T.
Kabore, Gaston, 1951-
Research in African Literatures, Volume 33, Number 4, Winter
2002, pp. 161-179 (Article)
Published by Indiana University Press
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http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ral/summary/v033/33.4martin.html
INTERVIEW
I am a storyteller, drawing water from
the well of my culture: Gaston Kabor,
Griot of African Cinema
An interview with Michael T. Martin
F
ramed by narratives of the precolonial past, decolonization struggles,
and postcoloniality, filmmaking practices and cinema cultures in
Black Africa are neither monolithic nor limited to Western genres.
1
Distinguished by national, cultural, gender, and ideological concerns, dif-
ferences among Black African filmmakers are perhaps most evident and
accented in films concerned with defining African identities. However, the
dissimilarities between these filmmakers are seemingly bridged in the uni-
versalizing concerns distilled from the African specificity by the Burkinab
director Gaston Kabor.
Ranked among Africas most distinguished filmmakers, Kabors
oeuvre is of extraordinary depth, conviction, and lucidity. Born in Burkina
Faso in 1951, Kabor began his cinematographic formation during adoles-
cence when he would draw sketches to accompany the stories he read in
books. He completed primary and secondary education in Burkina Faso
and then pursued studies in history at the Centre dEtudes Suprieures
dHistoire de Ouagadougou and later at the Sorbonne where he received a
masters degree. During the academic sojourn in Paris, Kabor also pur-
sued his interest in film at the Ecole Suprieure dEtudes Cinmato-
graphiques (ESEC). Upon completion of film studies, Kabor returned to
Burkina Faso where he worked in various professional capacities to pro-
mote and improve conditions for African cinema. His appointments
included: Technical Adviser for cinema at the Ministry of Information and
Culture, Director of the Centre National du Cinma, teacher at the Institut
Africain dEducation Cinmatographique (INAFEC), member of the
Expert Committee for the Establishment of the Inter-African Consortium
of Film Distribution (CIDC) and of the Inter-African Centre for Film
Production (COPROFILM), and General Secretary of FEPACI (Fdration
panafricaine des cinastes).
Kabors first film, Je viens de Bokin/I Come from Bokin (1977), was made
by students of INAFEC under his direction. The short film concerns a
tailor who leaves his village to seek more opportunities in the city; a
themethe city/villageKabor returns to in the context of urbanization
and postcolonial society in a later film. He then completed two documen-
taries, Stocker et conserver les grains/Storing and Conserving the Grain (1978)
and Utilisation des nergies nouvelles en milieu rural/The Use of New Energies in
Rural Areas (1980), which address farming methods and energy manage-
ment while Regard sur le VIme FESPACO/A Look at the 6th FESPACO (1979)
and Propos sur le cinma/Reflections on the Cinema (1986) promote and exam-
ine the obstacles to filmmaking in Africa, respectively.
2
Vol. 33, No. 4, Winter 2002
N-Interview 9/7/02 12:57 PM Page 161
162 Research in African Literatures
from Wend Kuuni. With permission from California Newsreel.
from Zan Boko. With permission from California Newsreel.
However, it was not until his first feature, Wend Kuuni/Gods Gift
(1982), for which he won the Csar award for best francophone film, that
Kabor distinguished himself as a filmmaker who would engage the social
and moral problems of modern Africa. Set in precolonial Africa during
the climax of the Mossi Empire, Wend Kuuni is the story of a mute and
memoryless child given the name Gods Gift by his adopted family. Unable
to explain his past until he is shocked by discovering a mans corpse and
regains speech, the boy accounts for his fathers disappearance while hunt-
ing and his mothers expulsion from a village for witchcraft after refusing
to remarry, followed by her death in the bush. In this seemingly simple
fable, Kabor at once returns to the sources of his ancient culture
to address the problems of modern Africa and denounces the archaic and
repressive aspects of custom and tradition, and the inferior and debilitat-
ing status of women in a complex narrative that invokes the oral story-
telling form.
In his second feature, Zan Boko (1988), Kabor takes up the conflict
between tradition and change, and the role of journalism and television in
African countries. Awarded the Grand Prize at FESPACO, the films nar-
rative is deployed masterfully to critique the adverse effects of urbaniza-
tion and modernization on the lives of peasants and their relationship to
the land, as the encroaching city relentlessly appropriates their homeland.
In the film, Kabor unmasks the alliance between corrupt government
officials and the African bourgeoisie, as Frantz Fanon so scathingly
denounced in The Wretched of the Earth (119-63).
In 1992, Kabor completed the short allegorical film Rabi, about the
son of a blacksmith who, through the friendship of a tortoise and old man,
discovers the meaning of life from his relationship with nature. In his third
feature, Buud Yam/Soul of the Group (1997), a sequel to Wend Kuuni, Kabor
revisits the past.
3
Set in the early nineteenth century, the films protago-
nist, Wend Kuuni, leaves the village of his adopted parents in search of a
curer for his half-sister, Pongner, who has contracted an unknown ill-
ness. The search for the curer becomes an existential odyssey in which
Wend Kuuni narrates his own story, recalling his childhood and family to
address the themes of redemption, responsibility, and destiny.
While his films examine contemporary social problems in Africa,
Kabor is also concerned with the central importance of film in articulat-
ing an African identity that affirms a usable past. In the interview, he
ruminates most eloquently and philosophically when he foregrounds the
determining roles of responsibility and destiny in the lives of African peo-
ples whose civilizations predate the west and whose contributions to our
universal patrimony has yet to be widely acknowledged and understood in
the west.
In the construction of an African imaginary, Kabors feature films
express an African sensibility and reality inscribed in Moor, a principal
language of his homeland. Indeed, Kabor emphasizes the fundamental
importance of language in the recovery as well as the development of a
national and continental identity, because, he asserts, language brings
Michael T. Martin 163
specificity to our experience. As Fanon so trenchantly enunciates in Black
Skins White Masks: To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syn-
tax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above
all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization (17-18). And
to underscore the determinacy of language, Kabor, in Zan Boko, fore-
grounds the cultural gulf between villagers, who speak Moor and the
urban elites who speak French.
In the following interview, Kabor also recounts his studies of history,
especially in France, that have shaped him as a filmmaker. Kabor also
details how he has financed his feature films and the supportive role
played by state agencies in several of his productions. He reflects upon the
efficacy of the Niamey manifesto (1982), as it pertains to the continuing
obstacles to film production and distribution that inhibit the development
of national cinemas in Africa and account, along with the paternalistic atti-
tudes of men, for the underrepresentation of women filmmakers in the
continent. He also affirms the Cameroonian director Jean-Marie Tenos
observation about the increasing importance of digital video as a low-cost
alternative to film production in Africa. The interview concludes with
Kabors discussion of two projects he hopes to undertake in the near
future.
Held on 29 March 2001, the interview occurred during the occasion
of Mr. Kabors visit to Bowling Green State University in Ohio where Zan
Boko and Buud Yam were premiered. I am indebted to Opportune Zongo
and Henry Garrity for their assistance in arranging for Kabors interview,
to Katherine Roberts for her essential translations during and after the
interview, and to Sridevi Menon and David Wall for their critical editorial
interventions.
Mr. Kabor, lets begin with your cinematic formation. Why did you
become a filmmaker?
When I was an adolescent in Burkina Faso I would make sketches, using
them in the mise-en-scne of the stories I read in books. I suppose this child-
hood practice was an early sign of my aspiration to tell stories. My interest,
however, in film developed unexpectedly while I was studying history at
the Sorbonne. During the fourth year of my studies, I became interested
in Western representations of Africa and how those representations stereo-
typed Africans and reflected prejudices against them. I was intrigued by
the depiction of Africa in the French press during the period of the late
nineteenth century when the European colonial powers re-partitioned
Africa; and especially, in the drawings of the French newspaper Le Petit
Journal illustr from 1885 to 1900. I did research at the Bibliothque
dOutre-Mer in Paris where I studied and photographed the drawings, and
became familiar with the colonial iconography of that period.
After completing the research at the Bibliothque, it appeared to me
that in contemporary European television documentaries, Africa was still
being misrepresented as an exotic and strange continent without tradi-
tions. It was apparent, at the time, that I had to learn the language of film
to be able to critically analyze those documentaries. I also wanted to under-
stand how television and film mediated ideologies of racial superiority and
how Africa served as a laboratory for their articulation. And as a student of
history, I wanted to understand how European representations of Africa
affected and structured the mentality of Africans, especially since, as
Africans, we were unable to escape those stereotypes.
So I studied cinema at the Ecole Suprieure dEtudes Cinmato-
graphiques in Paris to learn the language of images in order to better
understand history, especially the colonial and postcolonial history of
Africa. After a year of film studies, I realized I was more interested to tell sto-
ries through film than to use film as a research tool to record and analyze
history. During the two years of film studies, I completed the Diplme
d tudes approfondies and then returned to Burkina Faso to become a film-
maker.
Have other filmmakers influenced your style and conception of cinema?
Before I decided to become a filmmaker I saw many films. I attended the
first FESPACO film festivals in Ouagadougou where I met Ousmane
Sembene.
When I studied film in Paris, I was at first suspicious of any genre of
film and I refused to submit to any particular model of cinema. I didnt
want to become a specialist, for example, of international cinema. Upon
reflection, my position was a kind of resistance to classical cinema because
I had already seen many bad Western films. This led me to study several
films, including Intolerance (D. W. Griffith), Citizen Kane (Orson Welles),
and A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick). I dont think though that any
one film significantly influenced me at the time.
However, when I became a filmmaker, I began to understand and
appreciate the importance of Charlie Chaplin. He was able to make the
sun correspond with the moon. By that I mean he was able to crystallize
and signify meaning in a gesture or image, to make one image equal a
thousand words.
Has the introduction of film, video, and electronic media affected tradi-
tional modes of communication and expression in African societies?
That is a big question? I will tell you that Africas experience with cinema
has been through the eyes and imaginary of non-Africans. To me, cinema
is of vital importance to Africans because it can portray the world as
Africans experience it. By creating their own cinematic images, Africans
can confront and transform their reality.
Africa has a lot of problems, among them health, education, and food
production. These are important priorities. But cinema should also be an
important priority. We are not only bodies and stomachs. We are also
minds, spirits, and we have a culture. We come from a distant past and we
are different from how we are seen and scrutinized by other people. We
can think for ourselves and image what could be our future.
To me, cinema and television are tools that we can use to investigate
our culture and history, in order to understand the past and the present,
and to imagine a future in which we have a role. When I hear leaders of
the world speak about Africa its as if it will cease to exist in fifty to two hun-
dred years. Let us imagine Africa in the year 5045 because it will not dis-
appear. I want Africans to understand that they may appear inferior in
many things because development today is measured in terms of quantity. I
believe, however, that the value of human lives must be measured by some-
thing that is more than quantifiable. This system that materially reduces
human life cannot last forever. So, while it is very difficult for us today and
we have a lot of problems to resolve, we must continue to try to make peo-
ple understand that Africans have contributed to world civilization and our
universal patrimony. And through the mediums of film and television we
can communicate this fundamental truth to Africans and the rest of the
world. You have to determine the means to do that properly but I think
that requires that we first understand who we are. This process will take
time because we have been conditioned by colonialism and prevented
from thinking and seeing the world on our own terms, and we must be
really radical and passionate about the way we do this through film and
television.
Is filming in ones own native language a central concern of yours and
other African filmmakers?
There are two distinct aspects to your question. First, during the beginning
of African cinema, language was seen as an obstacle to the distribution of
films by Africans because we dont have a film industry in Africa. We have
a lot of languages in our continent. If filmmakers want to make films and
recuperate the costs of production, they have to address the issue of how
to reach audiences, not only through the distribution circuits but also in
which language.
The second aspect to your question is that language represents a real
and unique testimony of the history of societies because it expresses a peo-
ples thoughts and beliefs. How can you express your culture if you are not
speaking in your native tongue? So, to me its very critical for African peo-
ples and minorities in other areas of the world to speak in their mother
tongue. It is one means through which we can bring specificity to our expe-
rience and impact world culture. I dont mean that people should refuse
to speak so called international languages but when they do their mean-
ings and thoughts change.
I would say, in consideration of the two aspects of your question, that
if we want to continue working in Africa, we must export our films. We
must increase the audiences that see our films. For example, the American
cinema is made in English but it is seen all over the world in many lan-
guages. So we have the technical answer to the distribution of our films. If
the films are important and distributors think that they can make money
they will dub the films into other languages. But it is important that the
films should first be in one of our African languages because if we lose our
languages it will be very harmful to Africa. It would be the first stage of los-
ing our imaginary.
For us then it is urgent to understand that we are not inferior beings.
We have a very rich culture and through cinema we can retain our own
point of view. Otherwise, if we want to compete with the West in terms of
quantity we will always be kept in the back of the picture. And it is very
important for the youth today because theyre consuming images from
everywhere. Imagine a kid living in the hot sun in Burkina Faso. When he
dreams it is through the television. It is always stories coming from the out-
side world. His mind will always be elsewhere. How can he change and
transform reality if hes not applying his energy and dreams to that reality?
Lets talk about your feature films. In Wend Kuuni you depict precolonial
Africa and the Mossi empire before Islam and Christianity as largely con-
flict free, self-sufficient, and abundantly endowed with natural resources.
It is a bountiful land in which the markets are filled with trade goods. Have
you intentionally romanticized the Mossi empire and pre-colonial Africa to
contrast and critique Islam and the West?
Certainly, I was thinking of that, but I did not make the film with the inten-
tion to confront any other people or civilization. I wanted to tell a story
about my people and to tell that story using the ways of telling stories in
my culture. My principal audience is my community. I wanted to tell a story
without reference to the colonial period. Its the story of a young orphaned
boy discovering the bush, his adopted family, his real and strong friendship
with his half-sister, and to the day when he is able to speak and tell his story.
Its possible that this reading satisfies me because I made the film to com-
municate my feelings and emotions toward my people. But some people
have tried to comprehend another level of meaning in the film. And I trust
them to discover that. So, when I made Wend Kuuni, I didnt sit down to
contrast or show the contradictions between societies. That was not my
project. I just wanted to make a film and tell a story. It was my first film. Of
course, I had professional convictions. I wanted to use the way of telling
stories traditionally in my society and apply it to making a film. When I
made the film, it was so strange. The way I shot it, my framing and every-
thing. It was not a contestation. I said what I wanted to say based on my
experience at the time.
The tempo of village life and the daily routines of shepherding the goats,
household tasks, and preparing meals, accompanied by background music,
clearly are intended to give order, solidity, and stability to village and fam-
ily life. Are your drawing from the past for solutions to the present situa-
tion in Africa?
Yes, certainly, but I dont want people to think that I am, as you have said,
romanticizing the past. I think that in any society there is a search for har-
mony. Yet, from time to time you are confronted by unpredictable events
such as when Wend Kuuni sees the young woman revolt against her hus-
band. In every society there is oppression, domination, and injustice. But
in every society there are also forces for change and sometimes change
comes in an unexpected manner. So, to me, Wend Kuuni is a film about a
self-reliant society. The organization of that society is imperfect but the
community is very strong and individuals in that community are searching
for happiness.
When people speak of traditional societies, they think of them as
being monolithic, as if there were no personal ideals. I show in the film
that the personal exists, though perhaps not expressed in the same way as
in other societies. It exists in the young woman whom no one was prepared
to hear and that caused her husband, Bila, to hang himself. Her words
were violent and transgressive of the norms of that society.
Lets talk more about that. The young wife is criticized by both the older
women and the men in the village for her defiance and rejection of Bila,
her husband. In one scene, Wend Kuunis adopted father comments that
the young wife is not properly educated and that times must be changing.
Are you anticipating the negative consequences of modernity on family life
and community stability?
No. I dont want you to think that. It was just a woman saying: I have my
own life. I am seventeen years old. I would like a young and strong boy to
marry and not that old man. She was trying to assert her life and happi-
ness. In the modern period, we have other problems of course.
Why is the death of Wend Kuunis father not given finality in both Wend
Kuuni and Buud Yam, unlike in the death of Wend Kuunis mother in
Wend Kuuni?
Every question doesnt necessarily have an answer. I am a storyteller draw-
ing water from the well of my culture. When I made Wend Kuuni, I didnt
have a sequel in mind. When I stop, someone else will continue the story
of Wend Kuuni, perhaps endlessly. I dont know. People will always tell sto-
ries about this kind of destiny. As a filmmaker, I know that to make a film,
you need a beginning, middle, and an end. It is conventional, but I put in
my films our patrimony and our dreams. So my stories are open.
After Buud Yam, people expected me to do a sequel of it. Why not? But
I am not really completely obsessed by the idea of making that film.
You know of course that there is an intellectual side to filmmaking but
I also want my work to connect with something in my memory. I trust my
people when they see my films to imagine that I have not written them
because the films already belong to them. I am just an instrument to bring
back the story to them.
I feel sometimes that we explain too much trying to dissect everything.
I want my audience to take their own steps. My films belong to them. They
have also to work and find their own answers because I am posing ques-
tions more than answering them.
How are we to understand the films concluding scene when Wend Kuuni
confesses to Pongner and then walks off in the sunset to the village? The
film begins and ends pointing to the village. Is the village and all that it sig-
nifies in African society where the solutions to Africas problems lie?
Absolutely not. I didnt think of that.
Village life, richly detailed in Wend Kuuni, invokes communal and coop-
erative relations between villagers. Wend Kuuni sets the stage for your next
feature film, Zan Boko, where the clash between tradition and modernity
are framed by the relentless pressures of urbanization and development.
Would you discuss this conflict in the larger context of modern Africa?
The situation that I was portraying in Zan Boko could be viewed as repre-
sentative of the antagonism between the city and the village. What I
addressed in the film was the question of how to construct the present and
the future without losing the intelligence and energy derived from the past
because you cannot renew the present without the experience of the past.
It is like the gas you put in your car. If you want to move you need fuel. And
I think that the fuel Africa needs to move forward, like any other society,
comes from the past. When you do not understand this, you fail com-
pletely. In Zan Boko, we see how the city is consuming the villages which is
a consequence of modernization. I am not against modernity but I am
against a form of modernity that throws out the baby with the bath water.
I wanted to show how nobody cares about what the farmers think and
feel about the land. What their relationship to the land is. Yet, in a society
or community, the majority of people should have the floor to speak. Are
we clever enough to give them the opportunity to share their vision of the
world with us because I am sure it would not take us backwards? I have
remarked in the past that Zan Boko is critical of the bourgeoisie and of gov-
ernment administrators who have become robots, imitating and interior-
izing the West.
In the opening scenes of Zan Boko, the initial contact between villagers
and the urban dwellers appear tenuous, if not benign, even though there
are signs of the disruption to follow. By contrast, the scene between the
government minister and developer unmasks the governments collusion
with the countrys economic elites. However, the first act of resistance is
by Tingas son who tries to rub the number off the wall of his adopted par-
ents house. Why did you choose the child rather than Tinga, or some other
adult in the village to resist the governments intervention?
Because Tinga first appeared to be defeated and because I believe that the
future of Africa lies with the youth. Although Tinga was eventually defeat-
ed, he stood-up, like the journalist Yabre, and was faithful to himself. This
was the positive message in Zan Boko. When Tingas friend, a fellow farmer
and villager, confesses to him that he sold his land to buy a cart and don-
key, a paradox was created because the family the man now worked for was
responsible for his and Tingas loss of ancestral land and way of life. The
seeds of rebellion were also planted by Tingas wife, whom when he
appears to equivocate about selling the land, encourages him to resist and
be true to himself. It is said that women are submissive. Its not true
because women participate in the decisions, even sometimes playing a
major role in decisions. So we have several people resisting in the film,
each according to her/his psychology, age, and situation. That means that
the struggle continues, that it is a process, and that we have to stay vigilant.
While there is resistance there is hope. That is very important.
The city in Zan Boko encroaches upon the village, problematizing
thehomeland,as the village is transformed into a suburb of the city. Is
the central theme of Zan Boko evoked in the scene in which the watchman,
sent by his employer to buy Tingas land, utters, The city has conquered
our homeland?
Certainly. Its partly true that the suburbs develop when the city grows and
appropriates surrounding areas. However, the land on the periphery of
the city, acquired by the economic elites, may not necessarily become a
suburb because the rich dont live in the suburbs of the city.
The farmer who has sold his land to the wealthy man has become a
watchman and lost his economic independence because he has no fields
to cultivate. He has also lost his dignity and moral link to the land and,
ironically, has become the go-between for the wealthy man, mediating this
dislocating process on fellow villagers.
And the scene of the two boysone from the wealthy family and the
other Tingas adopted sonis also revealing of this fundamental dilemma.
The boy from the wealthy family has everything that money can buy, believ-
ing that because he is educated everything can be bought. Nevertheless,
he is jealous of Tinga sons capacity to create something and rejects the
boys gift because he does not want to be in his debt. He says to Tingas son
that if you dont want to sell it to me, I dont want it. In this scene the dia-
log between two cultures is frozen: The culture of possession and acquisi-
tion by money, and the culture of what I would call culture de ltre, being by
not having, or being opposed to having. Tingas son personifies the latter
culture, fighting to retain its existence apart from capital. Or rather this
cultures capital is not what it materially possesses.
Yabre, the journalist is witness to the failed development policies of the
government and to the alliance between corrupt government officials and
the economic elites of the country. Through Yabres character, are you
arguing for a critical journalism in Africa, independent, and in the service
of the nation and not the government?
Yes.
The final scene in Zan Boko, when Yabre appears on television and point-
edly critiques the governments ineffectual and harmful development poli-
cies and collusion with economic elites, he concludes by looking directly at
the audience and utters I urge you to remain true to your convictions . . .
and to yourself as a human being. Did this explicit scene cause problems
for you with the government in Burkina Faso?
No, it didnt cause me problems. I received authorization to shoot from
the government. I even received the assistance of the National Film Board
to make the film. Because we have the film festival [FESPACO] in our
country, I think that it compels the authorities to be more tolerant of film-
making.
You know that the worst form of censorship is self-censorship. Every
authority wants people to convince themselves that they cannot speak
against the government. If you accept this, then you cease to say anything.
That is the best possible situation for any authority. But if you try not to be
a coward and say what you think it becomes their responsibility to stop you.
Im not referring particularly to Burkina Faso, but in a general way to your
question. So, most of the time they let you go as far as you dare to go.
And your third fiction film, Rabi.
After Zan Boko I did Rabi in 1992. It was a film financed by the BBC. Unlike
my other films, I didnt have to fight for three years to finance Rabi. It was
part of a series of stories on the environment. The series enabled film-
makers from Third World countries to make films about the problem of
pollution and our responsibility for the environment. I made the film by
telling the story of a young boy and his friendship with an old man and a
tortoise. It is an educational film in which a boy learns about life from the
teachings of an old man. It is modeled on the Socratic method of how to
teach people to realize what they already know but are unable to express.
4
Why did you decide to make a sequel to Wend Kuuni, nearly sixteen years
later in Buud Yam?
Because I was ordered to by the audience the first time I showed Wend
Kuuni in Ouagadougou in 1982. I tried not to make Buud Yam, but after
sixteen years I had to submit myself to do it. On the same night I showed
Wend Kuuni in Burkina Faso, I heard a lady I know on the radio say it was
incredible and that the film was like a poem. You can imagine that this was
the best gift I could receive because people really identified with the film.
I didnt anticipate this kind of reaction. People said that I should use the
two kids again and that they should marry in another film.
The two protagonists made their own story?
Yes, but their story resonated not only in my country. I remember the
Tunisian writer Tahar Cheria who wrote an important essay on distribution
in Africa, Ecrans dabondance. He was in a high position at a francophone
agency. He asked me if I had ever been a shepherd? I said no. He then said
how was I able to describe the life of the young shepherd in the film if I
didnt have that experience? I replied that my cousins were shepherds and
when they came to Ouagadougou I talked with them. While I did not live
in villages, I know the village of my father, and I was sensitive and open to
village life. That helped me. You know its a kind of intuition and I was able
to portray emotions that the audience found credible. So in the beginning,
I said to people that Wend Kuunis story was over. It was the end of the tale.
Of course, you can imagine any sequel you want but to me it was finished.
I then made Zan Boko in 1988. Some people did not like the film
because it hit you in the face. My friends, working in the administration of
the government said, Gaston, you are true but its so hard. Why are you
so angry? I replied: I am not angry. I am just looking at reality and it is
violent. You may not see this, but that is the way it is.
Eight years after Wend Kuuni, people continued to urge me to do a
sequel. I said to myself that if I had to make a sequel what would be the
characters story? Where are they? Who are they today and what are their
concerns? In 1992, I finished the script for Buud Yam. It took a long time
because I was re-working and refining the story. I didnt want to reduce the
film to a melodrama because I wanted to make sure I had something to say
in the film. It was also clear to me that I could not make a sequel to Wend
Kuuni unless I used the same characters and the same actors as well. The
film became something I really wanted to do.
Is the protagonist in Wend Kuuni an allegorical figure of the crisis of iden-
tity among the Burkinab? Indeed, among African peoples in general?
Yes, we can think that because Wend Kuuni is emblematic of a condition
in Africa. As a child, Wend Kuuni lost his African roots when his parents
died. However, while we perhaps have lost something, we have the respon-
sibility to create. We cannot just cry. So, I think that all my films are about
identity, memory, and how to reconnect and understand the essence of
our existence. For example, in Buud Yam, you see the parallel between
Wend Kuuni and the character of the prince. Wend Kuuni is angry
because he didnt know his parents while the prince is running away from
his father, the king. Yet, the prince has everything. He is educated to
become king, but is running away. The contact with the prince helps Wend
Kuuni to understand that you cant just complain or blame other people
for your misfortunes. You must confront your destiny. While I didnt speak
about that in the film, Wend Kuuni was probably tempted to runaway and
never return to the village. I didnt say that in the film, but I think that it
was clear he sometimes had doubts. I didnt want to explain everything
because I, too, was unsure.
In Wend Kuuni, a third party narrates Wends story while in Buud Yam,
Wend Kuuni narrates his own story. Why this shift from the third to the
first person in the two films? Or rather, why an autobiographical approach
in the sequel, Buud Yam?
Because the character was evolving. You remember in the first scene when
he is speaking to his father. It was not as a narrative voice. That scene
showed the process of Wend Kuunis transition to manhood. He under-
stood that he had to do something for himself, but he did not yet know
how. The process always begins by revolting against fate, against the system
before you understand that you have your own part to fulfill, to achieve in
life. And I couldnt have chosen the third voice for that. It was clear he had
to command himself because you can never become a man or woman if
you dont confront your life. It took some unusual ways for him to under-
stand that. For example, Pongners, illness is an expression of the inter-
nal disease in Wend Kuunis life. Her illness revealed the storm within
himself.
If Wend Kuuni is an allegorical figure, is Pongners illness Africas as well
as Wend Kuunis?
Yes, we can say that because Africa is trying to revive and renew itself.
Pongners disease is mysterious. She was dying but not losing weight. It
was a psychosomatic illness. When you write a script, you write it and dont
necessarily have an intellectual justification for it. But you do it because
you were probably thinking about the story for many years. I was thinking
about the story until, at one moment, I started writing the script because
it became so clear and obvious to me. It was as if the story was imposing
itself on me. I couldnt alter it in any other way. Once you have created the
character, the character resists you. You cannot make him do anything you
want because he has a real existence that you have invented. But now you
have to compromise with the character because when you discover who he
is, he says I wont do that. I lived that experience for three years, writing
the script for Buud Yam, while slowly discovering what my story was about.
When Wend Kuuni utters to his half-sister I wonder who I really am, is
he speaking for other Africans?
Of course. In telling her that he doesnt know who he is because of the
trauma he experienced, having lost his parents and connection to the past,
Wend Kuuni raises the question of how can we be happy disconnected
from out past? Just surviving is not enough. Being alive is not enough.
Something is missing.
This brings us to a related question. Unlike in Zan Boko, the nineteenth
century and village life frame the narrative in Buud Yam. Why have you
chosen tradition, family, community, and memory to address the themes
of redemption, hope, responsibility, and destiny in your film?
Because the past could be today. By this I mean that while the story of
Buud Yam is in the past, it could be about today. By putting my story in the
remote past I have greater freedom to develop the narrative. But I do hope
that people understand that my films are completely relevant to today.
I also wanted to avoid a lot of traps because Africa has been so exam-
ined and dissected. People have fixed views about Africa. They dont have
an open mind to change how they view and understand Africa. Can you
imagine the number of specialists on Africa, living outside of Africa, par-
ticularly in the development field. They visit Africa once and declare:
Okay we know what is good for you. When their prescriptions fail, they
say: we were wrong, but we now know what is good for you.
Its my belief though I might be wrong, but when I did Zan Boko, which
occurs in the contemporary period, some people said, Well, yes, of course
we relate to the village, even though they see the village at their gates
being pushed away every day.
To me, my film is a grain of sand, compared to the complexity of the
African reality. So I am happy if people recognize that I am trying to point
out some problems in my films. Though people ask me Why are you mak-
ing films about villages? I am really sad when I meet people who do not
understand that my films are about problems relevant to Africa today. Even
some African filmmakers are saying, Lets make films about the city. I say
yes because their are interesting characters and destinies in the cities that
we can make films about. But why would you want to miss the opportunity
to speak about the reality of most Africans who live in villages? Many
Western journalists push African filmmakers to confront one another.
These journalists sometimes dont even understand what the films are
about.
5
Its a pity that there are so many Western critics of African cinema.
For example, six months before FESPACO, I met with some journalists.
They said: Well, what are you starting work on? We just want to know
about your films. I love your work so much. And then, six months later, I
met them at FESPACO and they are the ones distributing the prizes to
filmmakers. Why is it so easy for them to become specialists of African cin-
ema? This is a problem. They can be completely remorseless about what
they dont understand and come and do what they want. Its because we
dont have gatekeepers eventhough I sometimes suspect the gatekeepers
themselves.
Its very strange. I have some colleagues who teach in the university.
Ive said to them, You will be condemned by history because you dont
write, you dont, at least, pose questions, you dont push people to think.
What are you teaching your students about resistance? Why are you using
those books written by the same western guys that have discredited Africa
for so many decades? Why are you not able to think for yourself?
In another scene, Pongner says to Wend Kuuni: Is there a cure for my ill-
ness? My question to you, Mr. Kabor, is there and, if so, what would it
be?
Her cure cannot be remedied by chemical or herbal treatments. It is related
to the soul and the mind. Its not hopeless. Its a process of discovering the
ways to transform ourselves. I mean in the mind. We have to accept that and
be more responsible. All my films are about our heritage and legacy. You
inherit something that could be good or traumatic. You have to come to
terms with it before you die in order that other people can continue.
In Wend Kuuni, you invoke the past and its traditions within the context of
the village to inform the present. In Zan Boko you juxtapose the village to
modernitys offspring, urbanization, city life, and the destructive develop-
ment policies of African governments. And in Buud Yam, you have revisited
the past. Within a span of eighteen years you have returned to where you
first began this journey. Why?
I know, but these films are about identity and collective memory. How one
comes to understand who he is and where hes going. We must understand
these two things to know how to manage our lives, our destiny. So, for me
its not that Ive gone backwards. I am continuing along, across time,
addressing these two concerns and the problem of being the subject of
your own destiny. This is the important fact. When I juxtaposed the city
and village, I was not staging a conflict between two ways of life because
they are both contemporary. I am concerned with the internal [psycho-
logical] dynamics of these social processes than how they are physically
manifest. For example, you could be in the Waldorf Astoria in New York
City, knowing who you are, and relate entirely to your [African] culture.
Or, you could be in a less luxurious dwelling and be completely alienated
from yourself and your culture. What I am speaking about is the possibili-
ty for the individual to define what I would say is their soul. That is what is
important to life, not possessions. Its how you give meaning to your life.
What your quest in life is? Because that is what gives value to your life, not
a bank account. And it is not idealistic to think in this way. Each of us is
alone in a room. We have the same fundamental material needs. We give
priority to those needs and forget our souls.
Your concerns are more with the ethical and moral rather than material
problems of life and you use the African context to engage them?
Yes. Because its my land about what concerns me. The reality Im a
part of.
You and other African filmmakers have addressed the social dislocations
that have affected African societies, traditions, and identities. The disloca-
tions caused by the passage from village to city, as well as from emigrating
from African cities to metropolitan ones in Europe. Some African film-
makers have returned to traditional sources and themes for renewal. These
sources appear in counterpoint to modernity. Can one forge an African
identity from the past that embraces the present or are they irreconcilable?
We must reconcile the two because this is a period of transition in the life
of African communities. This period is born from the past and we have to
confront the present and create what people need to support themselves
as human beings.
Women filmmakers are underrepresented in the Third World, indeed in
First World countries as well. North and sub-Saharan Africa are no excep-
tion. Are the problems the same for women filmmakers in Africa as they
are for their counterparts in Asia and Latin America?
I think that women are absent from filmmaking in Africa in the same pro-
portion that they are absent in the health, education, and engineering
professions. This condition, in which women are denied knowledge and
training, is because men have dominated in society. This is changing but
it is true that women still have less access to education than men in Africa.
The imbalance also exists in film and television. It is very difficult to be a
film director. You have to pursue the money to finance your films and
society looks negatively upon women who do that. Many men dont want
women to do this kind of work because it exposes women to other people
and they would then compete with men. Unfortunately, society is not yet
prepared to see women in this profession. And women themselves are not
always prepared to challenge the views held by men. The same underrep-
resentation of women filmmakers exists in the western countries as
well. It must have something to do with very deep psychological problems
in society.
Under the imperatives of global capitalism, in which cultures conflate and
hybridize, is it possible to develop and sustain a national cinema in Africa?
It is very difficult for apparent reasons. First, because the populations of
many African countries are, too, small to create a market for a sustainable
film industry. Second, I think that most African countries are not really
prepared to accord the importance they should to cinema and television.
African governments are using television as a tool to communicate their
directives to the people rather than to educate them. They are unable to
imagine how the concerns of the majority of people could be reflected by
television and film and how that could contribute to transforming their
reality.
So a national cinema has yet to be created in most African countries.
The situation however is different in Morocco, Tunisia, and South Africa
where an infrastructure exists in which the crafts are sufficiently developed
to sustain a national cinema. In Burkina Faso we dont have the same pos-
sibilities as in these other countries but we are able to do something in this
sector. The film festival in Ouagadougou demonstrates that if there is polit-
ical awareness, the political commitment will follow, even if we dont have
the means to construct an infrastructure for a national cinema. In fact, I
would assert that the example of Burkina Faso shows that a national film
policy not only requires money, but also a cultural and political vision that
implicates cinema and television in the lives of its citizens.
How have you financed your films?
In Burkina Faso, Im fortunate to have the support of my country for the
reasons I discussed earlier. We have FESPACO and we have maintained a
film school in Burkina Faso for the past ten years. Cinema is on the agenda
of government leaders as well as the people in my country. I received sup-
port and equipment from technicians working in the National Film Board
in Burkina Faso. I also received the political support of my country to
request funds from the European Union. Their is a fund in the EU to sup-
port film production in the ACP (African, Caribbean, and Pacific) coun-
tries. The endorsement of my film project by the governments of Gabon
and Burkina Faso enabled me to obtain funding from Europe. I also
received support directly within Burkina Faso from the national office that
manages government vehicles. They provided the cars and drivers when I
was shooting on location in the country, and the government administra-
tion helped us resolve problems we encountered during production of the
films. We also stayed in schools in the villages that hosted us. So, there are
many ways to support filmmakers in Burkina Faso. The rest of the money
I needed to finance some of my films was obtained in France through the
Ministry of Cooperation. There is a commission that gives money to film-
makers in the Francophone countries. Similarly, there are commissions
that support filmmakers in the Anglophone countries. I also obtained
funds from Canal + France. They contributed $250,000 to the production
of Buud Yam and I received funds from an NGO (non-governmental orga-
nization) in Italy. And of course I invested my own work, as producer,
director, and scriptwriter, along with money I obtained from my family
and the people who backed me. Buud Yam cost about (US) $1.9 million
to make. I received $1.4 in funds, the rest in-kind ( cars, equipment, and
technicians).
Were there conditions to the financial support you received?
No, not one of the backers asked me to compromise my work.
Is digital video the optimal alternative to film given its relative high quality
and lower production costs?
We can use video in two ways: We can make relevant and absolutely worthy
films by video and we can use video to shoot movies that can be transferred
to celluloid, and by doing so lower production costs. However, we must be
aware that film and video are not the same. They constitute two different
formats. If you are working in video with the intention to transfer to cel-
luloid, you have to take into consideration that video has its own, especially
aesthetic, limitations. You have to adapt to the way you do the mise-en-scne.
For example, you have to have a specific conception and preparation to
lighting the film.
I will say that the digital camera offers new and creative possibilities
for expression and we have to learn how to use the technology in the ser-
vice of our ideals. Digital video is especially relevant today to African
cinema because we dont have the money to finance film production in
our countries. Every filmmaker would like to shoot in celluloid, but the
costs are too high. Through digital video we can lower production costs.
This brings me to Jean-Marie Tenos argument.
6
While our films would
be different in video, the situation in Africa today demands that we be
practical. If digital video allows us to make more films thats important
because the quality of the films we make depends also on our capacity to
make more films. We also need, along the lines Teno suggests, to train
more people to become technicians, actors, and scriptwriters, as well as to
expose our people daily to our own images. So I think that its important
for us to use a variety of modes to express ourselves and video facilitates
greater access to a larger audience. The young people in the cities of
Ghana and Nigeria have video and it has a positive and negative potential.
We have to deal with this reality.
The Niamey manifesto of filmmakers addressed the problems of produc-
tion, distribution, and the inadequacy of technical infrastructure in Africa.
Have its recommendations been implemented and its objectives realized?
Would you give us a status report on post-Niamey?
I believe that the manifesto of Niamey was very important because it
defined what should be undertaken to create a film industry in Africa. Of
course, filmmakers didnt succeed, at the time, in convincing government
leaders in most African countries to make cinema a national priority.
Unlike the period of the 1980s, when the Niamey manifesto was first
enunciated and we didnt have satellite television, the environment and
conditions today have changed. So we need to think differently about our
strategies while we still require the cooperation of African governments.
Our markets are small and we cannot expect to recoup the cost of pro-
duction if we are not creating larger regional markets for our films. We
also need to train more people and reconsider, unlike fifteen years ago,
the potential of television for the distribution of African films. Indeed,
televisions social impact has superseded cinemas in Africa today. We have
to be aware of this fact because, to communicate with the people, we must
reach them through television where they consume most of their images.
I also believe that we need more African entrepreneurs to finance film
and television production in Africa. And while film has a special role and
function in Africas development, Africans are increasingly buying VCRs
and DVDs and it is through these mediums that we will also have to com-
municate our stories to our people.
Whats your next project or are working on several projects at this time?
The first story concerns a 45-year-old African historian who is studying a
document about the colonial period in the archives of a university. The
document concerns a mutiny that took place in a camp for workers who
were forced to build a railway. The historian tries to learn more about the
workers who lived in the camp and the colonial officers who suppressed
the mutiny. First, he investigates the mutiny as a historian, then, as the
story slowly spirals and implicates his own family, he becomes personally
involved in the conflict and his familial history.
Have you written the script for this film?
Yes. Its going to be a kind of thriller in which the historian meets the peo-
ple who witnessed the mutiny. He encounters a man who knows the colo-
nial officer who was responsible for the death of his father in the mutiny.
He also discovers that his mother died as she was giving birth to him and
that he was raised by an uncle who pretended to be his real father, but was
really his fathers twin. So, he never knew the truth of his past though he
was supported and loved by his uncle. The discovery that he has never
known his biological father unsettles him and begins to cause problems
with his family. They dont understand why he is excavating his past or what
is to be gained from his inquiry. Later, he travels to France to seek revenge
against the former colonial officer who killed his father. But, as he con-
spires against the man, he realizes that history cannot be reconciled by per-
sonal revenge. He resolves not to confront the man with the purpose of his
visit and, ironically, rescues him from attack. In gratitude, the man accom-
panies him to the airport and gives him an envelop containing documents,
implying that they would be of interest to him. The documents are a record
of the conversations between the former colonial officer and his father who
had anticipated a visit from the son of the man he had killed decades ago.
I began this story twenty-five years ago in film school. I knew then that
I was not ready to tell the story, at a professional level. I am now ready to
confront the story and this film.
And your second project?
The second script is at the conceptual stage and not written. Its the story
about a boy that is going to experience the power that comes from the
knowledge of having received an inheritance and how he deals with it. I
would like for this film to be in the style of Wend Kuuni because it is very
pure and simple, and fundamentally about intuition and the essence of
things. How you see yourself in the universe. How you understand that you
are a very tiny element of the universe, yet you have a role to play.
Thank you, Mr. Kabor.
NOTES
1. For a survey of filmmaking in the black diaspora, see Martin.
2. Kabor completed two other short documentaries during the early 1990s:
Madame Hado (1992) and Un arbre appel Karite (1993)the former documen-
tary, a portrait of a famous folksinger of the Mossi plateau region of Burkina
Faso, and the latter, a portrait of a tree believed blessed by the gods as a pur-
veyor of food and traditional medicines.
3. Translation of Buud Yam from Moor to English by Opportune Zongo.
4. The filmmakers synopsis of Rabi translated by Katherine Roberts from the
French reads as follows: A blacksmith falls from his bike in order to avoid a tor-
toise that was crossing his path. He takes the tortoise home to his son Rabi. Rabi
is fascinated with the tortoise and forgets his training at the ironworks. Angry,
his father gets rid of the tortoise which upsets Rabi. His neighbor, the elderly
Pusga, seeing Rabi suffer, finds another tortoise to console the boy. Rabi wants
to tame this new tortoise and this new obsession causes him to once again defy
paternal authority. Pusga is the only one who understands Rabi. He opens Rabis
eyes to the wonders of nature, both the visible and invisible. Thanks to the
socratic teachings of his old friend Pusga, Rabi attains a level of understanding
about freedom, responsibility, and respect for life, while the young boy awakens
in the old man feelings long buried in his memory and in his heart.
5. Oliver Barlet echoes Kabors concerns about the poverty of Western criticism
of Black African cinema in African Cinemas 210-18.
6. For an elaboration of Jean-Marie Tenos views, see Imagining Alternatives:
African Cinema in the Year 2000 58-59.
WORKS CITED
Barlet, Oliver. African Cinemas: Decolonizing the Gaze. 1996. London: Zed, 2000.
Fanon, Frantz. Black Skins White Masks. Trans. Charles Lam Markmann. New York:
Grove, 1952.
. The Wretched of the Earth. Trans. Constance Farrington. New York: Grove,
1963.
Martin, Michael T. Cinemas of the Black Diaspora: Divisity, Dependence, an
Opporsitionality. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1995.
Teno, Jean-Marie. Imagining Alternatives: African Cinema in the Year 2000.
Library of African Cinema. San Francisco: California Newsreel, 2000.

Gaston Kabore, Griot of The African Cinema

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I am a storyteller, drawing water from the well of my culture:

Gaston Kabor, Griot of African Cinema

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