News & Events, September '07

Clementine Deliss @ the Chimurenga Factory

Independent curator, researcher and publisher Clementine Deliss was recently at the Chimurenga Factory to talk about the future of art education and present Metronome No. 10. Check out Emeka's pics from the event, visit Metronome Press, the Paris-based artists' and writers' organ founded by Deliss and Thomas Boutoux and download Metronome No. 10, recently published in Portland Oregon and based on Dwelling Portably, a zine created by a couple who have lived for 30 years on minimal amenities in dug-out cavities in dense non-farmed woodland.

Animal Planet in Chimurenga Online

Pius Adesanmi on pan-Africanism, nationalism, Négritude, and decolonization; the scramble for French theory, postmodernism; and the lions and impalas of the Serengeti. Read it: here.

Sarko, Mbeki, Baldwin & Pan-African Writing

Sarkozy, the villain of Chimurenga 11's cover remix of Monk's 1968 Underground album artwork is still up to kak. Last month it was Sarko's speech to the "elite African youth" at Cheick Anta Diop University in Dakar. And Achille Mbembe's hard hitting response (French here & English: here).
Now Mbeki has entered the fray with a congratulatory letter to Sarko praising the address. Sarkozy's written back. And Mbembe keeps up the running commentary in the Mail & Guardian.

More Mbembe in At Risk: Writing On and Over the Edge of South Africa, a new collection of twelve non-fiction texts on contemporary South Africa edited by Liz McGregor and Sarah Nuttall. Read Njabulo Ndebele's afterward to the book: here.

Alain Mabanckou is also in letter writing mode. His new novel, Lettre à Jimmy - a James Baldwin homage, epistolary-style - is now out from Fayard. French readers can sample it on Mabanckou's blog. Also worth checking out: Chris Abani's latest novel The Virgin of Flames which is getting praise singing by everyone from Walter Mosely to the New York Times.

In South Africa, word crew, Reunitedsiblings have just dropped their 3rd anthology Alliance Ya Bathlanka, featuring word artists from all over SA as well as two sisters from the US. You can also get the siblings on your phone from their website.

And online: check out the second edition African Writing featuring discoursing & samplings from UK-based diasporic African writers and The November 3rd Club's special issue on Literary Values in a Political Age for a discussion on what makes good political writing including shout outs to Chimurenga peeps Pumla Dineo Gqola. More on Chimurenga in the up ‘n coming Wasafiri #52: The Book in the World Vol 22(3) Winter 2007.

himamanda Ngozi Adichie, Chris Abani, Chenjerai Hove, Alexandra Fuller and Wole Soyinka are in house at From Apartheid to Darfur: Africa's Struggle Against Disdain at The Black Mountain Institute in Los Angeles on September 11.
And read Kabemba. M. Bin Ngulu's overview of the state of literature and literacy in the DRC and is calling for support. Contact him on +27 (0)76 999 0549 or email: ngulu2000.yahoo.com.

Biko, Black Bodies & Speculative Fiction

September 12 is the 30th anniversary of Biko's death. The Steve Biko Foundation hosts commemorative shing-dings around South Africa. Highlights: film screenings of Isaac Julian's Fanon: Black Skin White Mask and Sankofa, by Haile Gerima; a writing competition by Xarra Books & the Consciousness,Agency & the African Development Agenda Conference at UCT.

Murder by Memory as Gail Smith put it in Chimurenga Vol. 3: Biko in Parliament (Nov '02).

And Kwena Mokwena is currently working on an experimental documentary, A Blues For Tiro, which pays tribute to Black Consciousness leader Onkgopotse Tiro. Watch this space for details.

Another doccie in progress: M. Asli Dukan needs your support to complete Invisible Universe, a self-funded documentary tracing the history of blackness, black bodies & alternative perspectives in speculative fiction. If you're in NYC get to the Invisible Universe Fundraiser at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem on September 14, 6:30 - 8:30pm. Invisible Universe trailer: here.

On the Un-visible still, Chimurenga 12: Satan's Echo Chamber on black secret technologies, Amos' ghosts, Afro science fiction and such speculations. Deadline: Sept 29. Details here.

The Kpafuca Nation struts its stuff at the Abuja International Film Festival in Lagos, September 25 - 28. Also: the African Movie Academy Awards are calling for short, feature and documentary films submissions by African filmmakers.

Then, earlier this year Newton Aduaka won Best Film for Ezra at the Durban International Film Festival. Olivier Barlet gives his take on Durban 2007 in “South African complexities” over at Africultures.
Also in Africultures: 22 reflections on Sauper's Darwin's Nightmare & 10 reflections on Jean-Pierre Bekolo's sci-fi-action-horror mash-up Les Saignantes and St.Clair Bourne's shout-out to and interview with Gordon Parks.
Check Chimurenga 11 for images by Mr Parks and Chimurenga 8 for more film history in Odia Ofeimun's “In Defence of the Films We Have Made”.

Elsewhere in film in September: The fifth North West Film Festival and the 5th TRI Continental Film Festival in South Africa; Images et Paroles d'Afrique in Mali; the 13th Bite the Mango Film Festival in London; Films From The South 2007 in Oslo and Africa In The Picture in The Netherlands.

Also, the Cinemaf African Film Festival in Antwerp, which includes the DRAWING-MAIL-project AFRICA-BELGIUM exhibition featuring drawings by African artists. To participate simply mail them your drawings before September 15. Submission details here.

And another call: the SADC Drama for Life Programme is offering 28 Full Scholarships (tuition, residence, medical aid, permits, insurance) at Wits University in Jozi for performers/directors and teachers/facilitators in the field of Applied Drama and Theatre. More info here.