The Russian Connection

Russia may now be object of black people's nightmares. But a long time ago Africans looked to Russia, well the Soviet Union. Let's take cinema. "The father of African cinema" Ousmane Sembene went to study there. And Soviet cinema had a major impact on the narratives, styles and tone of a generation of African filmmakers afterwards. That connection was the subject of a public panel, "The Russian Connection," earlier this year at Gasworks Gallery in London. This is an edited video of that panel which I finally watched this weekend. (It's summer so I am catching up.) The panel consisted of film scholars Jeremy Hicks and  Ros Gray as well as the artist and writer Kodwo Eshun.

* The event was to celebrate the work of Guadeloupean filmmaker Sarah Maldoror, the director of the 1973 film, "Guns for Banta," about the liberation war against Portuguese colonialism in Guinea-Bissau. Maldoror was a classmate of Sembene. The event was held at Gasworks Gallery in London in February 2011. It was curated by Basia Lewandowska Cummings. The panel was an extension of an exhibition, also at Gasworks Gallery, "Foreword to Guns For Banta," by artist Matthieu Kleyebe Abbonenc.