By Gregory Austin Nwakunor
FOR cinephiles and avid watchers of home cooked films in the continent, Accra, Ghana, is the place to be, as the third edition of the Real Life Pan-African Documentary Festival, opens on Saturday, May 31. The documentary feast ends on June 6.
The festival, which is a platform to stimulate Africans to document their own histories while exchanging film vocabularies, methods and contexts with filmmakers from Africa and other continents, will honour the veteran Nigerian television producer, Cyril Okonkwo (aka CY), whose contributions to the vocation of documentary filmmaking in the continent is immense, this year.
According to a statement by the organisers, which was signed by Awam Amkpa, the Professor of African Studies at the New York University, New York, USA, and co-director of the festival, "Okonkwo is being celebrated to flag him up as a desirable model for the younger generation of film makers, who for now have not discovered the documentary genre as a medium of telling the authentic story of their people and the continent."
Amkpa said, "aside his dedication to TV Documentary production, Okonkwo has also trained a generation of documentary filmmakers who are currently holding the forte at the national television and other public and private stations in the country and around Africa."
Amkpa, himself a veteran documentary filmmaker, and one of the leading teachers of the genre in the USA, continued, "CY Okonkwo was chosen by the organisers of the Real Life Festival - West African Documentary Film Forum - for honour as a result of his commitment to the tedious medium of filmmaking, which many people do not often find attractive because of its strict demands on the filmmaker's time, patience with research and fact gathering and production process," adding, "with the honour, CY is being inducted into the West African Documentary Film Forum's Hall of Fame, a prestigious club of Africans and Africans in Diaspora who have made their marks in the vocation."
At inception in 2006, Real Life Festival honoured Ghana's Kwaw Ansah of Heritage Africa fame; and the legendary American William Greaves, famously called the 'Dean' of African-American Filmmaking (Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One and Take 2 1/2; All The Fighter; Bustin' Loose etc).
At the second edition, the British-Ghanaian, John Akomfrah (Seven Songs of Malcolm X; Urban Soul: The Making of Modern R &B; Riot; Handsworth's Songs etc)), who is renowned for his eclectic often provocative themes around questions of immigration and racial relations; and St.Claire Bourne (Making 'Do The Right Thing'; American Masters - Paul Robeson, Here I Stand; A Piece of the Block etc) (but who unfortunately died last year at age 64) was honoured.
In the course of the festival, works of CY Okonkwo will be screened before a large and qualitative gathering of fellow filmmakers who are attending the festival from different parts of the world, especially from Europe, USA, South America as well as parts of Africa.
The Aguata-Ezinifite, Anambra State native was born and brought up in Onitsha, to parents who were staunch Catholics. He did not, however, grow up to know his father who died when he was a toddler.
But the veteran documentarist triumphed over the adversity through the endless toiling of his mother to become a leading voice for documentary film on the continent. His fame within the television industry in Nigeria is so widespread that he is fondly called 'Mr Documentary'.
He attended the Junior Seminary in Onitsha and later Senior Seminary, Enugu, Enugu State, where he read Philosophy. He worked as a schoolteacher and had a brief working stint at the Nigerian Customs before he enrolled to study Mass Communication at the University of Lagos under the guidance of distinguished mass communication scholars such as the late Professor Frank Ugboajah and Professor Idowu Sobowale. This was in 1976.
He left the University of Lagos four years later with a Bachelor of Science degree, specialising in Print Journalism. He observed the mandatory one-year National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme at the Ogun Radio, Abeokuta, Ogun State. He was at that assignment when he was recommended; based on his scriptwriting abilities, for employment at the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), which prides itself as the 'largest network in Africa'.
Okonkwo joined NTA in 1980, and rose to become the head of the documentary unit, gathering reputation as a leading documentary producer, scriptwriter and director in the national television set up.
He is reputed to have written, directed and produced most of NTA's significant and outstanding documentaries. Ardent viewers of television in the country, especially the NTA must have at some point encountered the work of Okonkwo such as Food Basket, Rediscover Nigeria, Stewardship, The Ogbachi of Auchi, among the dozens of work he wrote, directed and produced in the course of a near-three decades career in TV. His most popular work is 'Food Basket', a series which ran for so many years on national television, and eventually found its way onto international screens through such mediums as the CNN, BBC, ARTE and CHANEL.
A grandfather who is married with six children, CY left the services of the NTA just this March 24, 2008 at age 60, having worked for 27 years producing nothing else but brilliant documentaries. He has also trained so many young hands in the documentary genre, who are also flowering currently.
Fifty-two films from Africa and its Diaspora will be freely shown in four venues across Accra during the festival.
As in past events, the festival will provide a forum for showcasing innovative and historical documentaries on African and Africans in the Diaspora. It will also feature professional workshops on new technologies of film production and digital archiving, as well as networks with film and television outlets worldwide.
In addition to the exhibition, workshops and exchanges of film ideas and techniques by professionals, the festival will also feature two unusual and exciting exhibitions from a high school visual literacy programme in which students present outstanding works, as well as works by students from film schools in Ghana, Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, Sudan, and the USA.
There will be three prizes to be won. The best African film will be awarded the $5,000 Afro-Pop Prize sponsored by US-based National Black Programming Consortium. The best African Diaspora film will be awarded the $5,000 Walter Mosley Prize. The best African student film will be awarded $1,000 Joe Ampah Memorial Prize.
Danny Glover chairs the board of the Forum with members drawn from award winning African and African Diaspora filmmakers, scholars and policy makers.
Members of the Advisory Board include Amkpa, Jahman Anikulapo (Nigeria), journalist, Kwaw Ansah, Ghanaian film producer and director and founder of the private television station, TV Africa, Africanus Aveh (Ghana), University of Ghana, Legon and filmmaker, Mbye Cham (Gambia), film scholar and author (Howard University).
Jean-Paul Colleyn, Belgium Anthropologist and Professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He has directed over 30 documentaries and published numerous articles and books including Le regard documentaire The Documentary Gaze, Lydie Diakhat�, Franco-Senegalese independent film producer and journalist, Ben Diogaye Beye, Senegalese film producer and director, journalist, critic and short story writer. A pioneer of Senegalese cinema, he has collaborated with the late Ousmane Semb?ne and Djibril Diop Mambety and directed several shorts and two feature films including the famous Sey Seyeti (A Man, Women), and Un amour d'enfant (Childhood Love), Danny Glover (USA), actor, producer, (Louverture Films).
June Giovanni (Guyana/UK), film curator and historian (London), John Akomfrah, producer and director, British Film Institute and BBC, Leslie Lokko, (Ghana) architect and novelist, Mabel Hadock (USA), film programmer/curator; ex-officio NBPC.
Jacquie Jones (USA), Executive Director, the National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC), Martin Loh, Director of National Film and Television Institute, Accra, Ghana, Cheikh Oumar Sissoko (Mali), cineaste, Esie Sutherland, Ghanaian poet and former Minister of Culture, she is currently Professor of English at the University of Ghana, Legon and Clyde Taylor (USA), film scholar and author (New York University).
The festival is part of the West African Documentary Forum - a production, post-production, archiving and scholarly organization dedicated to producing and documenting knowledge on contemporary African and African Diaspora issues through films.
The Forum seeks to contribute to bringing back film, video and digital screenings to theater audiences who had turned toward television in a period where film production is decreasing due to scarce finances, and where film distribution and exhibition are in peril, due to the closure of movie theaters.
The festival, which is a platform to stimulate Africans to document their own histories while exchanging film vocabularies, methods and contexts with filmmakers from Africa and other continents, will honour the veteran Nigerian television producer, Cyril Okonkwo (aka CY), whose contributions to the vocation of documentary filmmaking in the continent is immense, this year.
According to a statement by the organisers, which was signed by Awam Amkpa, the Professor of African Studies at the New York University, New York, USA, and co-director of the festival, "Okonkwo is being celebrated to flag him up as a desirable model for the younger generation of film makers, who for now have not discovered the documentary genre as a medium of telling the authentic story of their people and the continent."
Amkpa said, "aside his dedication to TV Documentary production, Okonkwo has also trained a generation of documentary filmmakers who are currently holding the forte at the national television and other public and private stations in the country and around Africa."
Amkpa, himself a veteran documentary filmmaker, and one of the leading teachers of the genre in the USA, continued, "CY Okonkwo was chosen by the organisers of the Real Life Festival - West African Documentary Film Forum - for honour as a result of his commitment to the tedious medium of filmmaking, which many people do not often find attractive because of its strict demands on the filmmaker's time, patience with research and fact gathering and production process," adding, "with the honour, CY is being inducted into the West African Documentary Film Forum's Hall of Fame, a prestigious club of Africans and Africans in Diaspora who have made their marks in the vocation."
At inception in 2006, Real Life Festival honoured Ghana's Kwaw Ansah of Heritage Africa fame; and the legendary American William Greaves, famously called the 'Dean' of African-American Filmmaking (Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One and Take 2 1/2; All The Fighter; Bustin' Loose etc).
At the second edition, the British-Ghanaian, John Akomfrah (Seven Songs of Malcolm X; Urban Soul: The Making of Modern R &B; Riot; Handsworth's Songs etc)), who is renowned for his eclectic often provocative themes around questions of immigration and racial relations; and St.Claire Bourne (Making 'Do The Right Thing'; American Masters - Paul Robeson, Here I Stand; A Piece of the Block etc) (but who unfortunately died last year at age 64) was honoured.
In the course of the festival, works of CY Okonkwo will be screened before a large and qualitative gathering of fellow filmmakers who are attending the festival from different parts of the world, especially from Europe, USA, South America as well as parts of Africa.
The Aguata-Ezinifite, Anambra State native was born and brought up in Onitsha, to parents who were staunch Catholics. He did not, however, grow up to know his father who died when he was a toddler.
But the veteran documentarist triumphed over the adversity through the endless toiling of his mother to become a leading voice for documentary film on the continent. His fame within the television industry in Nigeria is so widespread that he is fondly called 'Mr Documentary'.
He attended the Junior Seminary in Onitsha and later Senior Seminary, Enugu, Enugu State, where he read Philosophy. He worked as a schoolteacher and had a brief working stint at the Nigerian Customs before he enrolled to study Mass Communication at the University of Lagos under the guidance of distinguished mass communication scholars such as the late Professor Frank Ugboajah and Professor Idowu Sobowale. This was in 1976.
He left the University of Lagos four years later with a Bachelor of Science degree, specialising in Print Journalism. He observed the mandatory one-year National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme at the Ogun Radio, Abeokuta, Ogun State. He was at that assignment when he was recommended; based on his scriptwriting abilities, for employment at the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), which prides itself as the 'largest network in Africa'.
Okonkwo joined NTA in 1980, and rose to become the head of the documentary unit, gathering reputation as a leading documentary producer, scriptwriter and director in the national television set up.
He is reputed to have written, directed and produced most of NTA's significant and outstanding documentaries. Ardent viewers of television in the country, especially the NTA must have at some point encountered the work of Okonkwo such as Food Basket, Rediscover Nigeria, Stewardship, The Ogbachi of Auchi, among the dozens of work he wrote, directed and produced in the course of a near-three decades career in TV. His most popular work is 'Food Basket', a series which ran for so many years on national television, and eventually found its way onto international screens through such mediums as the CNN, BBC, ARTE and CHANEL.
A grandfather who is married with six children, CY left the services of the NTA just this March 24, 2008 at age 60, having worked for 27 years producing nothing else but brilliant documentaries. He has also trained so many young hands in the documentary genre, who are also flowering currently.
Fifty-two films from Africa and its Diaspora will be freely shown in four venues across Accra during the festival.
As in past events, the festival will provide a forum for showcasing innovative and historical documentaries on African and Africans in the Diaspora. It will also feature professional workshops on new technologies of film production and digital archiving, as well as networks with film and television outlets worldwide.
In addition to the exhibition, workshops and exchanges of film ideas and techniques by professionals, the festival will also feature two unusual and exciting exhibitions from a high school visual literacy programme in which students present outstanding works, as well as works by students from film schools in Ghana, Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, Sudan, and the USA.
There will be three prizes to be won. The best African film will be awarded the $5,000 Afro-Pop Prize sponsored by US-based National Black Programming Consortium. The best African Diaspora film will be awarded the $5,000 Walter Mosley Prize. The best African student film will be awarded $1,000 Joe Ampah Memorial Prize.
Danny Glover chairs the board of the Forum with members drawn from award winning African and African Diaspora filmmakers, scholars and policy makers.
Members of the Advisory Board include Amkpa, Jahman Anikulapo (Nigeria), journalist, Kwaw Ansah, Ghanaian film producer and director and founder of the private television station, TV Africa, Africanus Aveh (Ghana), University of Ghana, Legon and filmmaker, Mbye Cham (Gambia), film scholar and author (Howard University).
Jean-Paul Colleyn, Belgium Anthropologist and Professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He has directed over 30 documentaries and published numerous articles and books including Le regard documentaire The Documentary Gaze, Lydie Diakhat�, Franco-Senegalese independent film producer and journalist, Ben Diogaye Beye, Senegalese film producer and director, journalist, critic and short story writer. A pioneer of Senegalese cinema, he has collaborated with the late Ousmane Semb?ne and Djibril Diop Mambety and directed several shorts and two feature films including the famous Sey Seyeti (A Man, Women), and Un amour d'enfant (Childhood Love), Danny Glover (USA), actor, producer, (Louverture Films).
June Giovanni (Guyana/UK), film curator and historian (London), John Akomfrah, producer and director, British Film Institute and BBC, Leslie Lokko, (Ghana) architect and novelist, Mabel Hadock (USA), film programmer/curator; ex-officio NBPC.
Jacquie Jones (USA), Executive Director, the National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC), Martin Loh, Director of National Film and Television Institute, Accra, Ghana, Cheikh Oumar Sissoko (Mali), cineaste, Esie Sutherland, Ghanaian poet and former Minister of Culture, she is currently Professor of English at the University of Ghana, Legon and Clyde Taylor (USA), film scholar and author (New York University).
The festival is part of the West African Documentary Forum - a production, post-production, archiving and scholarly organization dedicated to producing and documenting knowledge on contemporary African and African Diaspora issues through films.
The Forum seeks to contribute to bringing back film, video and digital screenings to theater audiences who had turned toward television in a period where film production is decreasing due to scarce finances, and where film distribution and exhibition are in peril, due to the closure of movie theaters.
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