Visiting Filmmaker Bekolo Breaks African Stereotypes

In America, "foreign" film usually means film of European or perhaps Asian origin. Rarely, if ever, is Africa acknowledged as a film-producing culture. When Americans do see images of Africa, it is usually in the context of human tragedy.

African filmmaker Jean-Pierre Bekolo has made a reputation of resisting the stereotypes ascribed to African cinema. Born in Cameroon, he made his first film there, "Quartier Mozart," when he was 26. It went on to gain international acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival.

"I like to say Africa doesn't need food or money; it needs a good story. Stories determine civilizations," Bekolo said.

Bekolo currently serves as a visiting lecturer in the Department of Communication Studies, and is teaching film production and film history courses.

Rather than making a film that shows familiar images of Africa, Bekolo's "Quartier Mozart" offered a satirical, and often whimsical, study of gender relationships in contemporary Cameroon.

His second feature, "Aristotle's Plot" (1997), will screen Friday as part of the "Real to Reel: Black Life in Cinema" symposium.

The film was originally commissioned as part of the British Film Institute's "Century of Cinema" celebration, which featured works by Martin Scorsese, Bernardo Bertolucci and Jean-Luc Godard.

"Aristotle's Plot" is a clever meditation on the conventions of Hollywood action films and the state of film in Africa today. In a small African town, a group of pseudo-gangsters try to emulate American films, until a real filmmaker turns up and disrupts the act.

The film represents one of Bekolo's central concerns -- the importance of stories, both fictional and actual, in shaping personal and national identity.

"In the part of Africa I'm from, (the people) put fiction into real life. If someone dies, they will create a whole story about them," he said. "It was mainly to help people deal with the loss, to heal."

"Fiction is not just entertainment, it's not just something separate from life -- it's something that can help us on an everyday basis," Bekolo maintained. "America is a story -- the American dream. People will do anything to come to America because of the story."

The success of Bekolo's first two films made him re-evaluate the filmmaker's role in society.

"I didn't want to be the entertainer. I was trying to find another meaning, another purpose to filmmaking," he said.

"But I realized that I couldn't give up because film can really affect people's lives."

Bekolo remains critical of cinema's place. While it is a medium in which to raise difficult questions, he feels that much of cinema remains unexplored.

"I still have a problem with the definition of cinema," he said.

"If cinema is ideology, if cinema is stories, then what is the story? What is the story of black people? Where do these stories meet?"

Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" was inspirational when Bekolo was making his first feature.

"I really liked it for one reason. That film was asking one question: how are blacks and whites going to live together in America? It doesn't matter if you have a film with a lot of black people in it, the ideology is still there," he said.

"What is the film saying? What is the story saying?"

When Bekolo received the commission for "Aristotle's Plot," he decided that he would turn the film into an experiment of sorts.

"The film's playful, but it's more like an essay," he said. "I link Aristotle with Hollywood formula because he was the first to write a how-to book (of aesthetics). Aristotle/Hollywood is telling me the story I'm supposed to live, which is tragedy when I look at Africa."

Bekolo is currently at work on a short film with UNC students. The film deals with the human preoccupation with forms of immortality, and he described it as "a mixture of comedy, fantasy, and science fiction."

Though he has had his share of success, Bekolo is content to follow his own path.

"It's a duty for me to make films; the rest really doesn't matter," he said. "Success is like a light always moving around. If you start going after it, you might miss it altogether. But if it happens to pass by you, fine, but it will only be passing and you need to continue on your journey."

The Arts & Entertainment Editor can be reached at artsdesk@unc.edu.