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Nearly two weeks after beginning a new position as Knowledge Management Specialist at AWDF, I joined our team in hosting the 2nd African Women in Film Forum [AWIFF] in Accra [September 23-25]. The forum featured a delightful array of intimate speaker sessions and workshops at the African Regent Hotel and free film screenings at Alliance Fran\u00e7aise d\u2019Accra and the National Film and Television Institute [NAFTI]. Participants came from near and far including Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Cote d\u2019Ivoire, South Africa, U.S., UK, and France.\u00a0 The three days zipped by in a whirlwind of creative conversations by filmmakers, writers, activists, researchers, actors, producers and students on how<\/i> to sustain African women to share their stories with the world.<\/p>\n
The forum engrossed us in the crosshairs of many stories. Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, Communications Specialist at AWDF and the lead organiser of AWIFF, did a brilliant job making all feel welcome and comfortable. Her sincere and persistent focus on creating evolving discussions and action steps on the way forward was inspiring. Therefore, we were compelled to share our experiences or what Dr. Beti Ellerson called “a plurality of perspectives” with one another. Day by day, narratives kept unfolding – stories of forced exile and bittersweet return [Yaba Badoe’s The Witches of Gambaga], <\/i>stories between grandmothers, mothers and daughters that trigger the pulse of diasporic longing [Sarah Bouyain’s Children of the White Man <\/i>and The Place in Between<\/i>], stories that re-imagine myth-making through the portal of a father’s funeral [Akosua Adoma Owusu’s Kwaku Ananse<\/i>], stories that search for answers in the dense mine fields along the Zimbabwean border [Tsitsi Dangarembga’s On the Border<\/i>].<\/p>\n
As a researcher and archivist, my job is all about mining stories. Digging for stories in the field to understand how AWDF impacts grantees. Cultivating the organisational narrative and helping our staff, donors, partners and grantees to see how our stories and solutions are interconnected. Sharing new information with all stakeholders about how our work matters and the many ways we can captivate with our stories. Stories show us the magic of life, of journeys with no fixed end in sight but rather boundless paths leading to exploration, discovery and possibility.<\/p>\n
Stories are also relational practices – a social contract between speakers and listeners. What stories are we telling and for what purposes? By engaging storytelling as a political tool, the sharing transforms an account into an act of accountability, reciprocity and self-awareness between witnesses.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Here are just a few key stories that I gleaned from AWIFF:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1. Our Stories Are Diverse and Multi-Faceted<\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/b>Hawalatu Inusah took a 24-hour round-trip bus ride, from Tamale to Accra, to see the AWIFF film screenings. She works as Project Director of Northern Friends for Development, an NGO that trains young women with professional sewing, hairdressing and weaving classes. The organization began as a way to combat “kayayoo” (female head porters) or the migration of Northern women to Accra for work that often results in exploitative conditions.<\/p>\n Hawa’s bright eyes and warm spirit mirrors a passion to transform the livelihoods of women in the North. \u201cAWDF works with many local organizations in northern Ghana and helps us to stay connected, brainstorm and exchange ideas,\u201d Hawa shared prior to the first AWIFF film. \u201cIt\u2019s enlightening to learn about film production because it\u2019s different from my field. They are helping to change the way African women are shown. And this affects my chances \u2013 as an African woman \u2013 of being seen and heard.\u201d<\/p>\n Playwright and scriptwriter, Ade Solanke who also led a master class on Scriptwriting on the first day of the forum, asked what other genres can we explore for storytelling? Ade’s production company, Spora Stories, <\/i>is invested in telling stories of the diaspora or \u201cfish out of water stories, African abroad stories, in and out of culture stories.\u201d Such diverse migration stories, according to Ade, are universal experiences increasingly felt by people across the world. However, cultural and commercial values are revealed in how<\/i> we share our stories.\u00a0 Ade suggests we reframe the story by focusing on fresh, nuanced strategies to express the many realities of African lives.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 2. Our Stories are Always on the Move<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/b>Our stories indicate that we are flexible when confronting challenges, able to adapt and thrive, and imagine alternative dimensions to expand. <\/b>Anita Erskine, CEO of Brand Woman Africa, spoke about the importance of chasing the passion of our stories and nurturing organisational development. She discussed a desire to change the narrative of what it means to be African women into a destiny that is resourceful, inventive and interdependent. On the last day of AWIFF, Anita demonstrated her commitment by announcing that her company would provide production grants to two women students to make short films [and the grants will be managed by AWDF].<\/p>\n Similarly, Tsitsi Dangarembga pointed to the need for greater production support of African women’s stories, particularly mid-career directors who are often locked out of viable funding options. Tsitsi remarked, “filmmaking is not a site of privilege for African women but a site of struggle.” Therefore, our work should ensure that future generations of women can “climb higher.”<\/p>\n Writer and filmmaker Sarah Bouyain\u2019s work sits at the crossroads of mixed-race identity and reflects the complexity of being both French and Burkinab\u00e9. Bouyain\u2019s work is persistently framed through Burkina Faso and a dense exploration into intergenerational relationships between women family members. She muses, \u201cI was looking for cinema even when I was writing novels. I was writing with images. [Therefore] I want to make films from the perspective of a mother \u2013 to be an example for my daughter so she can do what she wants.\u201d In her next film, Sarah will use multi-racial identity as a conceptual device to tell the story because \u201cit\u2019s on my mind all the time, being from two countries where one colonized the other.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>