by AllAfrica.com

Documentary filmmaking holds a special place in the history of African women‘s cinema. In 1972, Senegalese filmmaker Safi Faye became the first sub-Saharan African woman to make a commercially distributed feature film when she directed “Kaddu Beykat”. The film, a mixture of fiction and documentary, depicts the economic problems suffered by Senegalese village farmers because of agriculture policies that Faye says rely on an outdated, colonial system of groundnut monoculture. Faye would go on to direct several documentaries often focused on rural life in her native Senegal.

African women who have taken documentary filmmaking to new levels come from across the continent and handle a wide range of topics. The films show an Africa that is not often seen, according to Beti Ellerson, director of the Center for the Study and Research of African Women in Cinema. Ellerson, who teaches courses in African studies, visual culture and women studies in the Washington, DC, area, is also the producer of a 2002 documentary, “Sisters of the Screen: African Women in the Cinema.”

Much has changed since Faye’s early Senegalese films. The emergence of the Internet, social media and crowd-funding platforms such as Kickstarter now offer a new generation of African women documentary filmmakers the tools to realize their visions. To learn of the challenges and opportunities facing African women filmmakers, AllAfrica’s Genet Lakew and Rahwa Meharena asked three women – Salem Mekuria, Rahel Zegeye and Sosena Solomon – to share their stories. They represent two generations of Ethiopian documentary filmmaking.

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from the Guardian.

Training in filmmaking and journalism is empowering women across rural Africa to find their voice and articulate their own development agendas.

Twenty seven year old Doreen squats amongst a group of women in a field in Samfya, Zambia. With the youngest of her four children tied to her back she works diligently and with intense concentration.Usually Doreen and the women she is working with do not elicit so much as a second glance but today they are attracting quite a crowd.

This is because rather than the dusty pick she would normally wield Doreen is holding a digital video camera, whilst another woman beside her is intently repositioning a sound boom. They are making a film about the impact of early marriage on their community and are in the process of interviewing one of the many mothers in their village.

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“Themes explored by African women filmmakers often fall under the rubric of consciousness-raising; specific topics intended for the general population or women specifically, with the express purpose of building awareness. In these instances, women filmmakers continue the role that African women in grassroots and non-governmental organizations for development have occupied for a long time.

In many cases, international organizations and development groups promote and finance films to develop social consciousness. Moreover, the United Nations has a long history of building awareness on international and local issues by a call to action, by formally observing a relevant theme.”

Read this article from African Women in Cinema.

The Ten Commandments of Filmmaking
How to Work (and Survive) in the
Film and Television Industry
by Peter D. Marshall