Afrique, je te plumerai
Cameroon,
1992, 88 min
Shown in 1993
CREDITS
- dir
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Jean-Marie Teno
- prod
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Jean-Marie Teno
- cam
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Robert Dianoux
- editor
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Chantal Rogeon
- source
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California Newsreel, 500 Third St, Suite 505, San Francisco, CA 94107. FAX: 415-284-7801. EMAIL: cm@newsreel.org
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COMMENTS
Jean-Marie Teno in person.
OTHER
Cameroon is the sole African country to have been colonized by three European nations: France, England and Germany. Africa, I Will Fleece You is filmmaker Jean-Marie Teno’s compelling sardonic essay on the history and legacy of colonialism in Cameroon and, by extension, on the African continent. It is a complex documentary which explains why the country is in its present state. The film recounts an African folk tale about a lark that was “fleeced” by the hunter—here clearly a metaphor for colonialism. (In a further touch of irony, the film’s title is taken from a verse in the French children’s song: “Alouette, je te plumerai.”) Clips from colonial-era documentaries paternalistically boast of European economic and social assistance to their African subjects, while contemporary testimony by African elders tells another story. Teno revisits and reenacts memories of his childhood during the twilight of the colonial period when education and popular culture were grooming young people for the neocolonialist stage which followed. More than an angry condemnation of the past however, this film sheds light, at times humorously, on how European culture continues to dominate. Africa, I Will Fleece You makes a strong case that the absence of a vibrant and autonomous native culture stifles democracy and development on the African continent.
—Cornelius Moore
FACTOID #123
San Francisco native Mervyn LeRoy, director of the Hollywood classics Little Caesar and Goldiggers of 1933, was honored with the Festival’s first tribute October 22, 1965.
