Bekolo Biography
30.4.06
New York Premiere of Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s Les Saignantes
Les Saignantes challenges cinema’s role in contemporary African society
by breaking away from political and social issue driven third world films
and pushing limits of form, content and values
(New York, NY) LES SAIGNANTES will have its New York Premiere at the 13th Annual New York African Film Festival at Walter Reade Theatre on Friday, May 28, 2006 at 7:45pm. Bekolo's wildly sci-fi influenced film puts Africa at a forefront of post-modern cinema by speaking to global youth audiences through an innovative form that mixes trash, gore, political and pop culture without losing its identity.
A nearly naked woman dangles suggestively in a harness suspended from the ceiling of a cramped room. She pirouettes, somersaults and generally taunts her audience, as a middle-aged man watches greedy for the younger woman's impossibly nubile body. A menacing air hangs over their coupling, heightened by the soundtrack's eerie score. In this hypnotic opening sequence, LES SAIGNANTES sets the stage for a genre-blending film that offers an arresting discourse on sexual politics.
Set 20 years in the future, LES SAIGNANTES follows two wannabee prostitutes on a bizarre and occasionally hilarious trek through a post-apocalyptic landscape littered with absurdly crooked politicians. Smoke rolls through the empty streets, which are cloaked in constant darkness. Aside from a few minor technological improvements, the town of Yaoundé where Majolie (Adele Ado) and Chouchou (Dorylia Calmel) hark their wares doesn't look as if any progress has been made by the year 2025, which is precisely Bekolo's point.
LES SAIGNANTES had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in 2005. The film debuted in Bekolo's native Cameroon in March despite initial resistance from the country's censorship commission. In a recent newspaper account of Bekolo's experience with Cameroon's censorship commission, one journalist writes, "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." The film's brought record numbers of Cameroonians back to movie theaters and to see the potential of their film culture.
What: NY premiere of Les Saignantes
(Cameroon, 2005, 92mm, French w/English subtitles)
Who: Directed by Jean-Pierre Bekolo
When: Friday, April 28 at 7:45 pm; Tuesday, May 2 at 3:00 pm
Where: Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center
165 West 65th Street (bet Broadway and Amsterdam)
Plaza Level, NYC
by breaking away from political and social issue driven third world films
and pushing limits of form, content and values
(New York, NY) LES SAIGNANTES will have its New York Premiere at the 13th Annual New York African Film Festival at Walter Reade Theatre on Friday, May 28, 2006 at 7:45pm. Bekolo's wildly sci-fi influenced film puts Africa at a forefront of post-modern cinema by speaking to global youth audiences through an innovative form that mixes trash, gore, political and pop culture without losing its identity.
A nearly naked woman dangles suggestively in a harness suspended from the ceiling of a cramped room. She pirouettes, somersaults and generally taunts her audience, as a middle-aged man watches greedy for the younger woman's impossibly nubile body. A menacing air hangs over their coupling, heightened by the soundtrack's eerie score. In this hypnotic opening sequence, LES SAIGNANTES sets the stage for a genre-blending film that offers an arresting discourse on sexual politics.
Set 20 years in the future, LES SAIGNANTES follows two wannabee prostitutes on a bizarre and occasionally hilarious trek through a post-apocalyptic landscape littered with absurdly crooked politicians. Smoke rolls through the empty streets, which are cloaked in constant darkness. Aside from a few minor technological improvements, the town of Yaoundé where Majolie (Adele Ado) and Chouchou (Dorylia Calmel) hark their wares doesn't look as if any progress has been made by the year 2025, which is precisely Bekolo's point.
LES SAIGNANTES had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in 2005. The film debuted in Bekolo's native Cameroon in March despite initial resistance from the country's censorship commission. In a recent newspaper account of Bekolo's experience with Cameroon's censorship commission, one journalist writes, "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." The film's brought record numbers of Cameroonians back to movie theaters and to see the potential of their film culture.
What: NY premiere of Les Saignantes
(Cameroon, 2005, 92mm, French w/English subtitles)
Who: Directed by Jean-Pierre Bekolo
When: Friday, April 28 at 7:45 pm; Tuesday, May 2 at 3:00 pm
Where: Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center
165 West 65th Street (bet Broadway and Amsterdam)
Plaza Level, NYC
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.
Jean-Pierre Bekolo creates Auteur Learning
released on 12/05/05 at 08:35:43
Philander Smith College, a historical black college located in Little Rock, Arkansas, is partnering with African filmmaker Jean-Pierre Bekolo starting next spring on a new film based teaching method called "auteur learning" to reduce drop out rates.
Little Rock, Arkansas (emergingminds.org) -- Philander Smith College, a historical black college located in Little Rock, Arkansas, is partnering with African filmmaker Jean-Pierre Bekolo through the University of Arkansas based Clinton School of Public Service starting next spring. Bekolo will use film/video as a teaching tool in an inter-disciplinary program that allows students to discover and explore their field of study working closely with a small group of specialized faculty.
An internationally acclaimed, award-winning filmmaker, Bekolo has devised an “auteur learning” method of instruction that uses the filmmaking experience as an intellectual as well as practical approach to teaching students who prefer a learning environment that relies on “construction” rather than classic “instruction” methods. Today in America, studies show that almost 30 percent of those entering high school never graduate (Greene & Winters, 2005). The program will target African-American students who have the highest drop out rate in the country.
Born in Cameroon, Bekolo’s auteur learning method is based on his own experience challenging Hollywood’s definition of cinema as entertainment. “I don’t see a difference between film and public service,” said Bekolo. “It’s all about education. The tools are there, the interest is there, we just need to create a method of acquiring knowledge that uses what is today the most immediately accessible medium.”
Bekolo’s debut film, Quartier Mozart, received the Prix Afrique en Creation at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival. His second film, Aristotle’s Plot, was one of several films commissioned by the British Film Institute to celebrate the 100th anniversary of cinema and included works by Martin Scorsese, Jean-Luc Godard, and Bernardo Bertolucci. Bekolo recently released Les Saignantes, which premiered at the 2005 Toronto Film Festival. Bekolo studied film semiotics under Professor Christian Metz in Paris and has taught at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and Duke University.
Philander Smith College, a historical black college located in Little Rock, Arkansas, is partnering with African filmmaker Jean-Pierre Bekolo starting next spring on a new film based teaching method called "auteur learning" to reduce drop out rates.
Little Rock, Arkansas (emergingminds.org) -- Philander Smith College, a historical black college located in Little Rock, Arkansas, is partnering with African filmmaker Jean-Pierre Bekolo through the University of Arkansas based Clinton School of Public Service starting next spring. Bekolo will use film/video as a teaching tool in an inter-disciplinary program that allows students to discover and explore their field of study working closely with a small group of specialized faculty.
An internationally acclaimed, award-winning filmmaker, Bekolo has devised an “auteur learning” method of instruction that uses the filmmaking experience as an intellectual as well as practical approach to teaching students who prefer a learning environment that relies on “construction” rather than classic “instruction” methods. Today in America, studies show that almost 30 percent of those entering high school never graduate (Greene & Winters, 2005). The program will target African-American students who have the highest drop out rate in the country.
Born in Cameroon, Bekolo’s auteur learning method is based on his own experience challenging Hollywood’s definition of cinema as entertainment. “I don’t see a difference between film and public service,” said Bekolo. “It’s all about education. The tools are there, the interest is there, we just need to create a method of acquiring knowledge that uses what is today the most immediately accessible medium.”
Bekolo’s debut film, Quartier Mozart, received the Prix Afrique en Creation at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival. His second film, Aristotle’s Plot, was one of several films commissioned by the British Film Institute to celebrate the 100th anniversary of cinema and included works by Martin Scorsese, Jean-Luc Godard, and Bernardo Bertolucci. Bekolo recently released Les Saignantes, which premiered at the 2005 Toronto Film Festival. Bekolo studied film semiotics under Professor Christian Metz in Paris and has taught at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and Duke University.
14.7.05
PORTRAIT by Bill Akwa Betotè
This Fall at The Clinton School
My filmmaking career has also put me in the priviledge position to travel, meet people and learn to understand the dynamics of our world. And my desire of giving back what I have learned has been strong through out the years. Even though I would like to pursue filmmaking I consider an intellectual activity, I have always thought that I need to get involved in the development of my community back in Africa. Cinema has been a good school for ideas, dreams and ideals. Now it's time to implement those ideas in people's everyday life in Africa.
As a writer-director, I devote most of my time analyzing human and society dynamics. I have been like a doctor who only makes diagnostics on patients. Now I would like to learn how to provide a treatment and make sure my patients are cured.That's the reason why I am applying at The Clinton School of Public Service. I would like to learn form people who can help me achieve that goal. And my admiration for President Clinton through out his eight years as president were so inspiring that it is an honor for me to attend The inauguration class of The Clinton School of Public Service.
I deeply think that Africa needs more and more people like President Clinton who will devote their lives at the service of their countries. There are so many abandonned bulding sites in Africa. There is such a need for qualified people in the competitive international scene battling for the continent interests. How do we raise funds for programs, how do we create jobs, how do we finance health and education, how do we create efficient administrations that can take care of people, how do we survive? I need myself to get answers to these questions and don't want to hear that it's impossible. I am a filmmaker and in the making of a film we are working to turn the impossible dream into reality. To create that great science-fiction movie, we need to ask the question "what if?" We need to change the African apocalyptic science-fiction movie. We need to develop a culture of collective dynamics based on values and ideals that goes beyond our lifetime in an environment where individual equations are becoming a burden for a continent that is desperate for unity praised by traditional african solidarities.
I would like to combine my experiences as a teacher as well as a filmmaker by bringing together all the ressources and put them at the service of Africa in fields such as knowledge, communication, organization, technology, fund raising, business, human ressources etc... I would like to be able to act on a local level as well as on the international level. The future of the continent lies in our ability to create different patterns for development, educate a new generation of young africans to implement those patterns, develop a positive and favorable international environment for the continent.
As a writer-director, I devote most of my time analyzing human and society dynamics. I have been like a doctor who only makes diagnostics on patients. Now I would like to learn how to provide a treatment and make sure my patients are cured.That's the reason why I am applying at The Clinton School of Public Service. I would like to learn form people who can help me achieve that goal. And my admiration for President Clinton through out his eight years as president were so inspiring that it is an honor for me to attend The inauguration class of The Clinton School of Public Service.
I deeply think that Africa needs more and more people like President Clinton who will devote their lives at the service of their countries. There are so many abandonned bulding sites in Africa. There is such a need for qualified people in the competitive international scene battling for the continent interests. How do we raise funds for programs, how do we create jobs, how do we finance health and education, how do we create efficient administrations that can take care of people, how do we survive? I need myself to get answers to these questions and don't want to hear that it's impossible. I am a filmmaker and in the making of a film we are working to turn the impossible dream into reality. To create that great science-fiction movie, we need to ask the question "what if?" We need to change the African apocalyptic science-fiction movie. We need to develop a culture of collective dynamics based on values and ideals that goes beyond our lifetime in an environment where individual equations are becoming a burden for a continent that is desperate for unity praised by traditional african solidarities.
I would like to combine my experiences as a teacher as well as a filmmaker by bringing together all the ressources and put them at the service of Africa in fields such as knowledge, communication, organization, technology, fund raising, business, human ressources etc... I would like to be able to act on a local level as well as on the international level. The future of the continent lies in our ability to create different patterns for development, educate a new generation of young africans to implement those patterns, develop a positive and favorable international environment for the continent.
30.6.05
Teaching Philosophy
THE MONTAGE LEARNING
My film practice and film teaching experiences have convinced me that the best position to teach film from is the « monteur » position. (the editor)
My first courses are always about breaking down,
analyzing and discussing students favored movies, shot by shot.
We learn how to build by deconstructing.
Then we watch critically the material we are supposed to put together.
We make a comparative study between the film semantic through the rushes we are supposed to assemble and the real world semantic.
And then we start building a discourse going back and forward between the two (the rushes and the real world).
This is where form appears.
Form is the way though which we make our comments in that dynamic.
We create a language adapted to the discourse raised from the confrontation of the real world and the ruhes shot to be assembled together.
This approach is theoritical as well as it is practical.
It is the essence of auteur filmmaking – « self expression » filmmaking using semiotics.
I challenge the students to make films for one person for example.
Jean-Pierre Bekolo
My film practice and film teaching experiences have convinced me that the best position to teach film from is the « monteur » position. (the editor)
My first courses are always about breaking down,
analyzing and discussing students favored movies, shot by shot.
We learn how to build by deconstructing.
Then we watch critically the material we are supposed to put together.
We make a comparative study between the film semantic through the rushes we are supposed to assemble and the real world semantic.
And then we start building a discourse going back and forward between the two (the rushes and the real world).
This is where form appears.
Form is the way though which we make our comments in that dynamic.
We create a language adapted to the discourse raised from the confrontation of the real world and the ruhes shot to be assembled together.
This approach is theoritical as well as it is practical.
It is the essence of auteur filmmaking – « self expression » filmmaking using semiotics.
I challenge the students to make films for one person for example.
Jean-Pierre Bekolo
18.1.05
Invisible Immigrant
Traditionally, young francophone Africans immigrate to France but for the past decades, more and more are coming to Canada but their efforts and sacrifices to become Canadian remain invisible to the general public. Jean-Pierre Bekolo's case illustrates very well how the Canadian system was able to make a filmmaker and a black African twice invisible. Instead of becoming a Canadian citizen, he has become a world citizen and his real world has become a fiction world.
If Canada and Cameroon have one thing in common it's the French and English official languages. But not only that, in Cameroon Canadian high school educated the elite of the country. That's the case of Jean-Pierre his brother Emile and his father.
Jean-Pierre first comes to Canada in October 1989 to visit his brother in Montreal. He has just finished the French school of media Institut National de l'Audiovisuel INA where he had a scholarship from Cameroon to study television production. In Montreal, Jean-Pierre gets passionate about the Indian problem of the Kanawaghe reserve and uses all his savings to shoot a film in the winter of 1989. When he tries to get a broadcaster interested he is being answered that they are not interested in "an African point of view on the Indian problem in Canada". That story of finding his own identity will be recurrent in Jean-Pierre relation with his work and with Canada. In the summer of 1990, Canadian are transfixed by the dramatic images of Mohawk warriors in an armed standoff with the Canadian army. Jean-Pierre's film remained uncompleted.
Jean-Pierre like his brother Emile who is now Canadian and his father attended Canadian Catholic high school in Cameroon runned by the Sacre Coeur congregation. Canadian school were the best in the country and Canadian brothers educated most of the local elite. Jean-Pierre's father became a top police commissioner in the country, he was able to pay for his other son Emile to study in Canada despite the costs. Emile attended HEC de Montreal and his tutor in Canada is a Cameroonian diplomat who will become his father in law. The presence of Emile, the older son in Canada will make it the turntable of Bekolo family life. A cousin living in Swiss will immigrate to Canada, a younger brother artist, a sister to study communication with her daughter, the mother will come for a year visit and obviously Jean-Pierre will file an immigration application. Before his father died the last family gathering will happen in Montreal where Jean-Pierre will meet his father for the last time.
All this family move to Canada doesn't help Jean-Pierre career as a filmmaker. France has much more funding for African filmmaker even if they don't live in France. This is where Jean-Pierre will tap into to get the funding of the first feature film "Quartier Mozart" he wrote, produced, directed and edited at the age of 24. The film is a satirical take on his family life with the authoritarian and polygamist police chief father. The film is a success in Cannes 1992, the French claim to have "discovered a talent African filmmaker". The film is shown in Montreal in August 1992 in the presence of his mother visiting Canada for the first time. Quartier Mozart is Simon Durivage's coup de Coeur (Simon Durivage is a famous Quebec political news anchor) on the news. Serge Losique (President of Montreal Film Festival) invites Jean-Pierre at a lunch to meet\ Roger Ebert (Famous US film critic) but naively, Jean-Pierre doesn't know who he is. He could only see that he had a black wife.
Jean-Pierre will tour the world with Quartier Mozart (India, Jerusalem, Goteborg, Ouagadougou, Dublin, London, Chicago, Washington, Locarno, Cannes…) entirely shot in Cameroon as the Cameroonian filmmaker while he was already a Canadian landed immigrant. Even if being Cameroonian was sometimes sexier than being Canadian, there was no doubt that Jean-Pierre was imprisoned in an identity he would have had hard time to change.
Jean-Pierre became landed immigrant of Canada as a skilled worker; he is an editor. He graduate from INA as an editor, he actually edited himself Quartier Mozart. Editing was his first passion in Cameroon when he joined the brand new television in 1996 while he was still studying physics at the University of Yaounde. He was trained to edit in the style of Eisenstein's La Ligne Generale by Roy Lekus a Canadian editor and filmmaker living in Paris who will mentor Jean-Pierre in the early days. Godard says that "editing is about putting together things that have nothing to do together" that's what Jean-Pierre seems to be doing with his life and career. Jean-Pierre keeps travelling. This will keep him out of any box Canadian administration system can put someone. Ten years after filing the immigration application in Canada, Jean-Pierre has become a citizen of the world; may be that's what being Canadian is about.
In 1993, Jean-Pierre meets Jackie Jones, a film critic at the Black Film Review who invite him to Memphis. Memphis the city where Martin Luther King was assassinated fascinates Jean-Pierre more than that it's the idea of partnering with young African American to make films we care about and mixing the African feel with the African American one. This is how Jean-Pierre decides to make Coming From Africa, a satirical film in the vein of Quartier Mozart about an African guy who is shipped in a FedEx box to America. Jean-Pierre is welcomed in town by the Mayor who will give him the keys of the city, David Porter, Rev Samuel Billy Kyles etc… The film is shot pre-edited in Chicago with the help of friends but has never been released, as Jean-Pierre had to run on another project commissioned by the British Film Institute in Zimbabwe.
Quartier Mozart got a nomination for the British Awards along with Taratino Reservoir Dogs. 1995 is the celebration of 100 years of cinema, the British Film Institute is making a series with Martin Scorsese, Stephen Frears, Jean-Luc Godard, Bertolucci, George Miller, Jean-Pierre Bekolo, the virtual african is chosen to represent Africa what he doesn't know how to do. Aristotle's Plot will be shot in Zimbabwe with South African actors, German producer, British money. Rebecca Garrett the Toronto video artist will shoot the making off.
Aristotle's Plot won't be edited until a year later. In the mean time, Jean-Pierre moves to Toronto with only one connection Noah Cowan from Toronto film festival. Noah will introduce him to Cameron Bailey who wrote great reviews on Jean-Pierre's Quartier Mozart but never met him. In Toronto, Jean-Pierre gets an editing job for an infomercial show called Dial-A-Date produced by David Bronstein. And Andrew Wells.
A few months later, when Jean-Pierre is happy to have finally settled in Canada, he receives a call from a the French producer Jacques Bidou who would only get involve in completing Artistotle's Plot if Jean-Pierre leaves Toronto and comes to Paris for the editing. At first, Jean-Pierre will turn down the offer before he changes his mind. Jean-Pierre will manage to get the sound design done in Toronto by Steve Munro and the film will also premiere at the Toronto film festival in 1996 before shown at Sundance in January 1997. At the festival, Jean-Pierre meets for the first time the actor Maka Kotto originally from who has succeeded in becoming a real Canadian. Maka Kotto has heard about Quartier Mozart at home in Cameroon where the film is a big hit. He lives in Montreal with his family and has been able to work regularly on Canadian films. Jean-Pierre concludes that it's easier for an actor than a director like him.
The Last Chapter, Jean-Pierre's next project gets Alliance interest. The concept of the film is about two black Harlem cop from Chester Himes' novels, Coffin and Gravedigger who gets to France to ask their author not to kill them. Jean-Pierre flies to Los Angeles to meet with Mike Horowitz. He lives at the Canadian actress Tonya Lee Williams from the Young and the Restless he met in Toronto in the festival. The project won't go any further but Jean-Pierre would like to understand the city and decide to follow with his video an old photographer who is the sort of black memory of Los Angeles, Roland Charles (another film never edited). Jean-Pierre discovers that Quartier Mozart has made it in Blockbuster and the film is a hit in US Colleges. Jean-Pierre is invited at Virginia Tech in 1998 as an Artist in Residence and makes a film with students (a film never edited).
It seems like the reason why Jean-Pierre's work never get edited is because he is a homeless trying to survive as a filmmaker when he knows his work won't have an outcome.
The information Age hit the world, Jean-Pierre dreams about a broadcasting outcome for his "African take on the world". He joins the new utopia of the Internet and comes up with the concept of GlobReatual. GlobReatual is exactly the solution to Jean-Pierre's problem. How to recreate one world for everybody that is real for them on a virtual medium fulfilling human rituals? Jean-Pierre presents is GlobReatual concept to Andre Davanture, the founder of Atria, the organization that has produced hundreds of African films for the last 30 years including Yeelen by Souleymane Cisse. The organization is about to shut down, with Andre, Jean-Pierre raises the question of what is the next step after the Nouvelle Vague and all the 1968 movements? GlobReatual will starts like an extension of Atria to capitalize on the past. And every Tuesday, Jean-Pierre organizes Les Paris du Mardi gathering black intellectuals and artists in Paris. Les Paris du Mardi will become at television show Canal France International (CFI) will cancel before it is broadcasted.
With the help of a Vancouver based non-profit organization, Jean-Pierre takes a group of young Canadian just graduated from college to Cameroon to create that GlobReatual Television. The Canadian are mixed with Cameroonian and they produce together about sixty hours of original programming also never edited. Sarah Shamash a Canadian student who was part of that dream project remembers it as the most exciting experience she ever had.
Jean-Pierre has to run one more time. Out of money, he gets a job offer by Joanne Hershfield a Canadian professor famous for her work on Mexican cinema at University of North Carolina who has been teaching Quartier Mozart in her world cinema class. Jean-Pierre is a star in the Campus, he makes a horror film with students (another film never edited). He also takes a group of student in a summer class to Paris in program he has created Making Movies In Paris. (not edited).
As Jean-Pierre Bekolo is now about to shoot his next feature film Les Saignantes, the question of if this is going to be a canadian film or it will be a film made by a canadian, Jean-Pierre answers the inspiration was African, the critical approach francophone and the style north American. Is this Canadian? "I don't know anymore. What matters is to be myself and do what I am supposed to do. The rest I leave it those who are interested in boxing people, classifying them, creating frontiers, setting standards. At the end of the day I prefer to stay transparent." In the meantime, University of Duke is waiting for his availability to be an Artist in Residence on Campus.
Classified as a Visible Minority Jean-Pierre Bekolo who has been until now invisible to the Canadian his country of adoption is in this autoprotrait/autobiography gives visibility to the incredible work he has accomplish and that has remained invisible.
If Canada and Cameroon have one thing in common it's the French and English official languages. But not only that, in Cameroon Canadian high school educated the elite of the country. That's the case of Jean-Pierre his brother Emile and his father.
Jean-Pierre first comes to Canada in October 1989 to visit his brother in Montreal. He has just finished the French school of media Institut National de l'Audiovisuel INA where he had a scholarship from Cameroon to study television production. In Montreal, Jean-Pierre gets passionate about the Indian problem of the Kanawaghe reserve and uses all his savings to shoot a film in the winter of 1989. When he tries to get a broadcaster interested he is being answered that they are not interested in "an African point of view on the Indian problem in Canada". That story of finding his own identity will be recurrent in Jean-Pierre relation with his work and with Canada. In the summer of 1990, Canadian are transfixed by the dramatic images of Mohawk warriors in an armed standoff with the Canadian army. Jean-Pierre's film remained uncompleted.
Jean-Pierre like his brother Emile who is now Canadian and his father attended Canadian Catholic high school in Cameroon runned by the Sacre Coeur congregation. Canadian school were the best in the country and Canadian brothers educated most of the local elite. Jean-Pierre's father became a top police commissioner in the country, he was able to pay for his other son Emile to study in Canada despite the costs. Emile attended HEC de Montreal and his tutor in Canada is a Cameroonian diplomat who will become his father in law. The presence of Emile, the older son in Canada will make it the turntable of Bekolo family life. A cousin living in Swiss will immigrate to Canada, a younger brother artist, a sister to study communication with her daughter, the mother will come for a year visit and obviously Jean-Pierre will file an immigration application. Before his father died the last family gathering will happen in Montreal where Jean-Pierre will meet his father for the last time.
All this family move to Canada doesn't help Jean-Pierre career as a filmmaker. France has much more funding for African filmmaker even if they don't live in France. This is where Jean-Pierre will tap into to get the funding of the first feature film "Quartier Mozart" he wrote, produced, directed and edited at the age of 24. The film is a satirical take on his family life with the authoritarian and polygamist police chief father. The film is a success in Cannes 1992, the French claim to have "discovered a talent African filmmaker". The film is shown in Montreal in August 1992 in the presence of his mother visiting Canada for the first time. Quartier Mozart is Simon Durivage's coup de Coeur (Simon Durivage is a famous Quebec political news anchor) on the news. Serge Losique (President of Montreal Film Festival) invites Jean-Pierre at a lunch to meet\ Roger Ebert (Famous US film critic) but naively, Jean-Pierre doesn't know who he is. He could only see that he had a black wife.
Jean-Pierre will tour the world with Quartier Mozart (India, Jerusalem, Goteborg, Ouagadougou, Dublin, London, Chicago, Washington, Locarno, Cannes…) entirely shot in Cameroon as the Cameroonian filmmaker while he was already a Canadian landed immigrant. Even if being Cameroonian was sometimes sexier than being Canadian, there was no doubt that Jean-Pierre was imprisoned in an identity he would have had hard time to change.
Jean-Pierre became landed immigrant of Canada as a skilled worker; he is an editor. He graduate from INA as an editor, he actually edited himself Quartier Mozart. Editing was his first passion in Cameroon when he joined the brand new television in 1996 while he was still studying physics at the University of Yaounde. He was trained to edit in the style of Eisenstein's La Ligne Generale by Roy Lekus a Canadian editor and filmmaker living in Paris who will mentor Jean-Pierre in the early days. Godard says that "editing is about putting together things that have nothing to do together" that's what Jean-Pierre seems to be doing with his life and career. Jean-Pierre keeps travelling. This will keep him out of any box Canadian administration system can put someone. Ten years after filing the immigration application in Canada, Jean-Pierre has become a citizen of the world; may be that's what being Canadian is about.
In 1993, Jean-Pierre meets Jackie Jones, a film critic at the Black Film Review who invite him to Memphis. Memphis the city where Martin Luther King was assassinated fascinates Jean-Pierre more than that it's the idea of partnering with young African American to make films we care about and mixing the African feel with the African American one. This is how Jean-Pierre decides to make Coming From Africa, a satirical film in the vein of Quartier Mozart about an African guy who is shipped in a FedEx box to America. Jean-Pierre is welcomed in town by the Mayor who will give him the keys of the city, David Porter, Rev Samuel Billy Kyles etc… The film is shot pre-edited in Chicago with the help of friends but has never been released, as Jean-Pierre had to run on another project commissioned by the British Film Institute in Zimbabwe.
Quartier Mozart got a nomination for the British Awards along with Taratino Reservoir Dogs. 1995 is the celebration of 100 years of cinema, the British Film Institute is making a series with Martin Scorsese, Stephen Frears, Jean-Luc Godard, Bertolucci, George Miller, Jean-Pierre Bekolo, the virtual african is chosen to represent Africa what he doesn't know how to do. Aristotle's Plot will be shot in Zimbabwe with South African actors, German producer, British money. Rebecca Garrett the Toronto video artist will shoot the making off.
Aristotle's Plot won't be edited until a year later. In the mean time, Jean-Pierre moves to Toronto with only one connection Noah Cowan from Toronto film festival. Noah will introduce him to Cameron Bailey who wrote great reviews on Jean-Pierre's Quartier Mozart but never met him. In Toronto, Jean-Pierre gets an editing job for an infomercial show called Dial-A-Date produced by David Bronstein. And Andrew Wells.
A few months later, when Jean-Pierre is happy to have finally settled in Canada, he receives a call from a the French producer Jacques Bidou who would only get involve in completing Artistotle's Plot if Jean-Pierre leaves Toronto and comes to Paris for the editing. At first, Jean-Pierre will turn down the offer before he changes his mind. Jean-Pierre will manage to get the sound design done in Toronto by Steve Munro and the film will also premiere at the Toronto film festival in 1996 before shown at Sundance in January 1997. At the festival, Jean-Pierre meets for the first time the actor Maka Kotto originally from who has succeeded in becoming a real Canadian. Maka Kotto has heard about Quartier Mozart at home in Cameroon where the film is a big hit. He lives in Montreal with his family and has been able to work regularly on Canadian films. Jean-Pierre concludes that it's easier for an actor than a director like him.
The Last Chapter, Jean-Pierre's next project gets Alliance interest. The concept of the film is about two black Harlem cop from Chester Himes' novels, Coffin and Gravedigger who gets to France to ask their author not to kill them. Jean-Pierre flies to Los Angeles to meet with Mike Horowitz. He lives at the Canadian actress Tonya Lee Williams from the Young and the Restless he met in Toronto in the festival. The project won't go any further but Jean-Pierre would like to understand the city and decide to follow with his video an old photographer who is the sort of black memory of Los Angeles, Roland Charles (another film never edited). Jean-Pierre discovers that Quartier Mozart has made it in Blockbuster and the film is a hit in US Colleges. Jean-Pierre is invited at Virginia Tech in 1998 as an Artist in Residence and makes a film with students (a film never edited).
It seems like the reason why Jean-Pierre's work never get edited is because he is a homeless trying to survive as a filmmaker when he knows his work won't have an outcome.
The information Age hit the world, Jean-Pierre dreams about a broadcasting outcome for his "African take on the world". He joins the new utopia of the Internet and comes up with the concept of GlobReatual. GlobReatual is exactly the solution to Jean-Pierre's problem. How to recreate one world for everybody that is real for them on a virtual medium fulfilling human rituals? Jean-Pierre presents is GlobReatual concept to Andre Davanture, the founder of Atria, the organization that has produced hundreds of African films for the last 30 years including Yeelen by Souleymane Cisse. The organization is about to shut down, with Andre, Jean-Pierre raises the question of what is the next step after the Nouvelle Vague and all the 1968 movements? GlobReatual will starts like an extension of Atria to capitalize on the past. And every Tuesday, Jean-Pierre organizes Les Paris du Mardi gathering black intellectuals and artists in Paris. Les Paris du Mardi will become at television show Canal France International (CFI) will cancel before it is broadcasted.
With the help of a Vancouver based non-profit organization, Jean-Pierre takes a group of young Canadian just graduated from college to Cameroon to create that GlobReatual Television. The Canadian are mixed with Cameroonian and they produce together about sixty hours of original programming also never edited. Sarah Shamash a Canadian student who was part of that dream project remembers it as the most exciting experience she ever had.
Jean-Pierre has to run one more time. Out of money, he gets a job offer by Joanne Hershfield a Canadian professor famous for her work on Mexican cinema at University of North Carolina who has been teaching Quartier Mozart in her world cinema class. Jean-Pierre is a star in the Campus, he makes a horror film with students (another film never edited). He also takes a group of student in a summer class to Paris in program he has created Making Movies In Paris. (not edited).
As Jean-Pierre Bekolo is now about to shoot his next feature film Les Saignantes, the question of if this is going to be a canadian film or it will be a film made by a canadian, Jean-Pierre answers the inspiration was African, the critical approach francophone and the style north American. Is this Canadian? "I don't know anymore. What matters is to be myself and do what I am supposed to do. The rest I leave it those who are interested in boxing people, classifying them, creating frontiers, setting standards. At the end of the day I prefer to stay transparent." In the meantime, University of Duke is waiting for his availability to be an Artist in Residence on Campus.
Classified as a Visible Minority Jean-Pierre Bekolo who has been until now invisible to the Canadian his country of adoption is in this autoprotrait/autobiography gives visibility to the incredible work he has accomplish and that has remained invisible.
17.1.05
Bekolo adepte des cours de Christian Metz
Jean-Pierre Bekolo, l'auteur de Quartier Mozart a peine 25 ans quand il commence ce projet qu'il écrit, réalise, produit et monte lui-même. Originaire du Cameroun, ce jeune talent naît avec la première chaîne de télévision de son pays mêlant à la fois le style narratif subjectif de la radio avec la nouvelle écriture cinématographique du montage cut des clips vidéos de la fin des années 80. Adepte des cours de théorie du cinéma de Christian Metz et de Spike Lee, Jean-Pierre Bekolo dont le film Quartier Mozart est enseigné dans de nombreuses universités américaines est un réalisateur "post-engagé" chef de file d'une génération d'un cinéma africain post-moderne nouveau. Le Complot d'Aristote (Sélectionné à Sundance 1997), sa contribution pour les 100 ans du cinéma dans la même série que Scorsese, Godard, Bertolucci, Frears et sa nommination aux British Awards avec Tarantino confirme son style qu'il adapte actuellement au cinema de genre dans Les Saignantes (2005) et qu'il enseigne désormais à Duke University aux USA. Il crée une chaîne de télévision Evenement 4.
16.1.05
Curriculum Vitae
Jean-Pierre Bekolo
filmmaker- film professor - public servant
lives between Cameroon, Toronto, Paris, Brussels, Durham NC, Little Rock AR (USA)
works in French and English
Feature Films
2005 LES SAIGNANTES - Quartier Mozart Films - France- Cameroun
1994-1996 ARISTOTLE'S PLOT - JBA Productions Zimbabwe, South Africa UK, France, Canada.
Part of British Film Institute 100 years of cinema's series along with Martin Scorsese, Stephen Frears, Jean-Luc Godard, Bernardo Bertolucci, George Miller...
1991-1992 QUARTIER MOZART - KOLA CASE France Cameroun.
Other Films
1996 LA GRAMMAIRE DE GRAND’MERE Johannesburg
Interview of filmmaker Djibril Diop Mambety, Senegal.
Television Releases
Channel 4 UK, TV5 Canada-France-Afrique, Canal Plus France, VPRO Hollande, CFI, Afrique...
Theater Releases
Kino USA, Sachtel & Margo Films FRANCE, Import Spor Distribution DANEMARK, Kola Case AFRIQUE...
Awards
1997 ARISTOTE'S PLOT Winner Prized Pieces Film Awards, Pittsburgh USA The National Black Programming Consortium.
1993 QUARTIER MOZART Nomminated for the British Film Awards along with Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs
1992 QUARTIER MOZART Cannes Film Festival Prix Afrique en Création.
1992 QUARTIER MOZART Locarno Film Festival Prix Swissair - Prix Carte Jeunes.
1992 QUARTIER MOZART Montréal World Film Festival Mention Spéciale du Jury.
Press
Variety, Premiere, New York Times, Hollywood, Reporter, Le Figaro, Le Monde, Canard Enchaîné, New Yorker, The London Times, The Guardian, Chicago Tribune, Studio, Liberation, Africa International, Cameroon Tribune,The Globe & Mail, Continental, Le Messager, The Weekly Mail, Tessiner Zeitung, Il Giorno, Eco di Locarno ...
Festivals
ARISTOTLE’S PLOT
1998 Smithsonian - Marseille - Carthage
1997 Sundance Film Festival - Rotterdam - Amiens
1996 Toronto Film Festival
QUARTIER MOZART
1998 Budapest, Marseille, Perugia
1993 Lincoln Center , London, Jerusalem, New Delhi, Chicago
Dublin, Götenborg, Copenhagen, Geneva, Washington, Philadelphia, Ouagadougou.
1992 Cannes, Locarno, Montréal.
TEACHING POSITIONS
2003 Fall DUKE UNIVERSITY Literature Department Film & Video Program
2000-2001 UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL COMMUNICATION DEPARTMENT
1998 Spring VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE Artist in Résidence
1995 UNESCO Project Southern Africa Zimbabwe
TELEVISION PROJECT
2004 EVENEMENT TELEVISION 4 Promoter of a local Television for Developpement in Yaounde - Cameroon in partnership with the city of Yaoundé.
Affiliations
Member of Comité d’Orientation of FEMIS since 2000.
Member of SACD (Société des Auteurs Compositeurs Dramatiques).
Member of SRF (Société des Réalisateurs de Film)
Membre of UPF (Union des Producteurs de Films)
filmmaker- film professor - public servant
lives between Cameroon, Toronto, Paris, Brussels, Durham NC, Little Rock AR (USA)
works in French and English
Feature Films
2005 LES SAIGNANTES - Quartier Mozart Films - France- Cameroun
1994-1996 ARISTOTLE'S PLOT - JBA Productions Zimbabwe, South Africa UK, France, Canada.
Part of British Film Institute 100 years of cinema's series along with Martin Scorsese, Stephen Frears, Jean-Luc Godard, Bernardo Bertolucci, George Miller...
1991-1992 QUARTIER MOZART - KOLA CASE France Cameroun.
Other Films
1996 LA GRAMMAIRE DE GRAND’MERE Johannesburg
Interview of filmmaker Djibril Diop Mambety, Senegal.
Television Releases
Channel 4 UK, TV5 Canada-France-Afrique, Canal Plus France, VPRO Hollande, CFI, Afrique...
Theater Releases
Kino USA, Sachtel & Margo Films FRANCE, Import Spor Distribution DANEMARK, Kola Case AFRIQUE...
Awards
1997 ARISTOTE'S PLOT Winner Prized Pieces Film Awards, Pittsburgh USA The National Black Programming Consortium.
1993 QUARTIER MOZART Nomminated for the British Film Awards along with Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs
1992 QUARTIER MOZART Cannes Film Festival Prix Afrique en Création.
1992 QUARTIER MOZART Locarno Film Festival Prix Swissair - Prix Carte Jeunes.
1992 QUARTIER MOZART Montréal World Film Festival Mention Spéciale du Jury.
Press
Variety, Premiere, New York Times, Hollywood, Reporter, Le Figaro, Le Monde, Canard Enchaîné, New Yorker, The London Times, The Guardian, Chicago Tribune, Studio, Liberation, Africa International, Cameroon Tribune,The Globe & Mail, Continental, Le Messager, The Weekly Mail, Tessiner Zeitung, Il Giorno, Eco di Locarno ...
Festivals
ARISTOTLE’S PLOT
1998 Smithsonian - Marseille - Carthage
1997 Sundance Film Festival - Rotterdam - Amiens
1996 Toronto Film Festival
QUARTIER MOZART
1998 Budapest, Marseille, Perugia
1993 Lincoln Center , London, Jerusalem, New Delhi, Chicago
Dublin, Götenborg, Copenhagen, Geneva, Washington, Philadelphia, Ouagadougou.
1992 Cannes, Locarno, Montréal.
TEACHING POSITIONS
2003 Fall DUKE UNIVERSITY Literature Department Film & Video Program
2000-2001 UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL COMMUNICATION DEPARTMENT
1998 Spring VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE Artist in Résidence
1995 UNESCO Project Southern Africa Zimbabwe
TELEVISION PROJECT
2004 EVENEMENT TELEVISION 4 Promoter of a local Television for Developpement in Yaounde - Cameroon in partnership with the city of Yaoundé.
Affiliations
Member of Comité d’Orientation of FEMIS since 2000.
Member of SACD (Société des Auteurs Compositeurs Dramatiques).
Member of SRF (Société des Réalisateurs de Film)
Membre of UPF (Union des Producteurs de Films)
Bekolo as secret agent man
Jean Pierre Bekolo, the noted African film director known as the "secret agent man," Bekolo subverts the conventions and didacticism of African film and literature with an aesthetic that "tosses it all merrily together."
Bekolo, a Francophone Cameroonian, is the director of "Quartier Mozart", which won prizes at film festivals in Cannes, Locarno, and Montreal. It was nominated, in 1993, for a British Film Institute award, along with Quentin Tarrantino's "Reservoir Dogs." The film mixes sorcery and urban realities in a satire of male and female roles. It's style is playful, comic, and sardonic.
"Aristotle's Plot," his most recent feature film," started out as the African entry in the British Film Institute's series of films commemorating the centenary of cinema Part meditation on the trials of African filmmaking, part action movie send-up, part parody of Aristotle's rules, part satire on Africa's preoccupation with itself, this film shows Bekolo to be an "increasingly fearless trickster."
The British Film Institute also invited such directors as Bernardo Bertolucci, Stephen Frears, Martin Scorsese, Anne-Marie Mieville & Jean-Luc Godard, and Edgar Reitz. But instead of turning in a respectful documentary, as Martin Scorsese did for the U.S. and Stephan Frears did for Britain, Bekolo rendered a wild hybrid "that is certain to be the most talked about African film of the year."
"Aristotle's Plot" was featured at the Sundance Film Festival in January 1997. Bekolo's films have also appeared at film festivals in England, Ireland, France, India, Israel, Burkina Faso, Canada and throughout the U.S.-- in New York, Chicago, L.A., Washington, and Phildelphia. At only 36, Bekolo has already worked in TV , he has taught film at Virginia Tech and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His work is the subject of more than 20 academic books.
Bekolo knows African and Western film well, and he knows most of the other "recognized" directors from Africa.
Bekolo's current film project is titled, "Les Saignantes", a horror movie on sexual politics.
Bekolo, a Francophone Cameroonian, is the director of "Quartier Mozart", which won prizes at film festivals in Cannes, Locarno, and Montreal. It was nominated, in 1993, for a British Film Institute award, along with Quentin Tarrantino's "Reservoir Dogs." The film mixes sorcery and urban realities in a satire of male and female roles. It's style is playful, comic, and sardonic.
"Aristotle's Plot," his most recent feature film," started out as the African entry in the British Film Institute's series of films commemorating the centenary of cinema Part meditation on the trials of African filmmaking, part action movie send-up, part parody of Aristotle's rules, part satire on Africa's preoccupation with itself, this film shows Bekolo to be an "increasingly fearless trickster."
The British Film Institute also invited such directors as Bernardo Bertolucci, Stephen Frears, Martin Scorsese, Anne-Marie Mieville & Jean-Luc Godard, and Edgar Reitz. But instead of turning in a respectful documentary, as Martin Scorsese did for the U.S. and Stephan Frears did for Britain, Bekolo rendered a wild hybrid "that is certain to be the most talked about African film of the year."
"Aristotle's Plot" was featured at the Sundance Film Festival in January 1997. Bekolo's films have also appeared at film festivals in England, Ireland, France, India, Israel, Burkina Faso, Canada and throughout the U.S.-- in New York, Chicago, L.A., Washington, and Phildelphia. At only 36, Bekolo has already worked in TV , he has taught film at Virginia Tech and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His work is the subject of more than 20 academic books.
Bekolo knows African and Western film well, and he knows most of the other "recognized" directors from Africa.
Bekolo's current film project is titled, "Les Saignantes", a horror movie on sexual politics.
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