Cannes you believe it?
2007-05-23 14:32
Dear Editor,
As a writer who's had to relocate to another country in order to have my stories, plays and films produced, I found it hilarious to read the article titled Africa ignored at Cannes.
As if it was somehow racist for the Cannes Festival to not have picked an African film. What utter cheek! The world doesn't owe African filmmakers a living.
Art and entertainment stands or falls by virtue of its innate quality of concept, technical ability and overall craftsmanship. Making a good product, in other words.
It's not a simple issue of either "pure chance" or linked to "colour discrimination" that no African films made it to Cannes. It could also be that quite simply, the films on offer, story-wise at least, were banal, unimaginative, wallowing in angst and politics, and generally conceptually crap and juvenile.
African filmmakers should grow up, stop hiding behind charges of racism, and join the global community by creating imaginative, interesting films that capture the imagination of the worlds cinema goers.
Africa has gifted writers, and great filmmakers - however the rest of the world is now a little tired of seeing yet another existential pseudo-edutainment vehicle disguised as a film, coming from Africa.
If you want to make non-stop grimy films about starving people, low-life street gangsters, politics and the disparity of living standards between the different ethnic groups - you're simply not going to get treated in the same way that good filmmakers elsewhere are received.
SA has the expertise and the crews - but they don't trust their writers, especially the ones who come up with wild and fun ideas.
Ian Fraser
USA
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