Bekolo Biography
17.1.06
Bekolo faces censorship in Cameroon
Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s « Les Saignantes » is Prescription for Ailing African Political Regime, Censorship Commission Does Not Like the Medicine
(Yaoundé, Cameroon January 3, 2006) Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s new film “Les Saignantes” may be censored by the regime of Cameroon president Paul Biya, who has been in power for 24 years. The Biya regime is threatened by the film’s messages and fears their potential impact on Cameroonians instead of viewing Les Saignantes as a prescription-movie for a sick country.
Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s Les Saignantes arrives like an electroshock in a country in search of a new future. This film proves that the art of cinema isn’t limited in the type of relations it could have with power and with an audience when we are not suppressing our identity to a western context.
Les Saignantes was presented to the censorship commission and to the press on Wednesday, December 28, 2005. The film opens with the question, ”How can one make an anticipation movie in a country that has no future?,” which leads into a montage of the film’s main character Majolie (Adèle Ado), hanging on harnesses, beating up an old man -- the Secretary General of the Civil Cabinet (SGCC) -- in a suggestive martial arts dance that leads to his death.
These elements appearing in the first two minutes of the film set up the filmmaker’s discourse. These two minutes were also enough to make the president of the censorship commission draft a note the very next day -- in an administration where things are generally very slow -- to the Minister of Culture Ferdinand Oyono, a writer now in his 80s.
The letter states that the film is ”pornographic” and ”against the regime” and has generated a strong reaction from Mr Oyono. Indeed Biya’s regime suffers from a lot of problems including corrpution the President himself denounced December 31st in his annual address to the nation. Biya also acknowledged that the climate was dull as he seemed desperate for some hope. Where could the regime find hope? In the year 2025, the period in which Les Saignantes is set? At the IMF or World Bank to whom the regime has surrendered the economic problems of people? In the first year of the new seven term of a 24-year-old regime that has won elections on the slogan ”Cameroon of Great Ambitions?”
By questioning not just the freedom of expression but also the very idea of cinema in a country, Les Saignantes creates a debate from which the entire Cameroonian society should come out victorious. Bekolo offers to Cameroonians a way to release the hidden tensions by helping them to deal with the forces that undermind their lives. As the public servants of the Minister of Culture are struggling with Les Saignantes’ meanings, Bekolo has succeeded to put the Biya regime in a film school where they have to learn how to analyse, deconstruct and anticipate the reception of the film by a population going through hard times. Bekolo’s ingenuity resides in the fact that Les Saignantes is a prescription-movie for a sick country. Would Biya’s censorship commission understand that? In the meantime, the film’s scheduled première on January 1, 2006, has been cancelled while we waiting for a decision.
(Yaoundé, Cameroon January 3, 2006) Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s new film “Les Saignantes” may be censored by the regime of Cameroon president Paul Biya, who has been in power for 24 years. The Biya regime is threatened by the film’s messages and fears their potential impact on Cameroonians instead of viewing Les Saignantes as a prescription-movie for a sick country.
Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s Les Saignantes arrives like an electroshock in a country in search of a new future. This film proves that the art of cinema isn’t limited in the type of relations it could have with power and with an audience when we are not suppressing our identity to a western context.
Les Saignantes was presented to the censorship commission and to the press on Wednesday, December 28, 2005. The film opens with the question, ”How can one make an anticipation movie in a country that has no future?,” which leads into a montage of the film’s main character Majolie (Adèle Ado), hanging on harnesses, beating up an old man -- the Secretary General of the Civil Cabinet (SGCC) -- in a suggestive martial arts dance that leads to his death.
These elements appearing in the first two minutes of the film set up the filmmaker’s discourse. These two minutes were also enough to make the president of the censorship commission draft a note the very next day -- in an administration where things are generally very slow -- to the Minister of Culture Ferdinand Oyono, a writer now in his 80s.
The letter states that the film is ”pornographic” and ”against the regime” and has generated a strong reaction from Mr Oyono. Indeed Biya’s regime suffers from a lot of problems including corrpution the President himself denounced December 31st in his annual address to the nation. Biya also acknowledged that the climate was dull as he seemed desperate for some hope. Where could the regime find hope? In the year 2025, the period in which Les Saignantes is set? At the IMF or World Bank to whom the regime has surrendered the economic problems of people? In the first year of the new seven term of a 24-year-old regime that has won elections on the slogan ”Cameroon of Great Ambitions?”
By questioning not just the freedom of expression but also the very idea of cinema in a country, Les Saignantes creates a debate from which the entire Cameroonian society should come out victorious. Bekolo offers to Cameroonians a way to release the hidden tensions by helping them to deal with the forces that undermind their lives. As the public servants of the Minister of Culture are struggling with Les Saignantes’ meanings, Bekolo has succeeded to put the Biya regime in a film school where they have to learn how to analyse, deconstruct and anticipate the reception of the film by a population going through hard times. Bekolo’s ingenuity resides in the fact that Les Saignantes is a prescription-movie for a sick country. Would Biya’s censorship commission understand that? In the meantime, the film’s scheduled première on January 1, 2006, has been cancelled while we waiting for a decision.
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