Many countries as well as some Cameroon filmmakers are going on with an atrocious imitation of the ideology behind Hollywood.
By Zigoto Tchaya Tchameni, filmmaker/critic/journalist.
Zigoto Tchaya Tchameni |
Hollywood has expanded its tentacles even in the mouth of newly born babies
in some parts of the world. While cinema halls in Cameroon have been closed
down, India and Nigeria are on the limelight as the second and the third
world’s largest in film production.
It was in 2009 when I returned to Cameroon from
England for Holidays and was invited by a good friend in the name of Kanjo
Ernest, to attend a “COLLYWOOD” meeting. I didn’t understand the meaning of
“COLLYWOOD”. Before leaving Cameroon for London in 2005, there wasn’t any set
up or group that could put together professionals in the domain of filmmaking.
The “COLLYWOOD” guys had put in place a structure known as “COLLYWOOD”, meant
to bring together Cameroonian filmmakers in form of guilds: Actors guild,
Director and Producers guilds. What a magnificent idea with people like Agbor
Gilbert who had tremendous success as he made much money by merging the
Cameroon film market with Nigerians? I was so glad that the different guilds
had as plan of actions, to carve out strategies to bring back cinema halls in
Cameroon as well as encouraging the culture of filmmaking, constantly make
films whether good or bad qualities and flood the Cameroon market and to create
film institutes to train film enthusiasts.
The meeting was made up of a mixture some young
gossips and some English speaking Cameroonians whose understanding of
filmmaking was far from ideological conceptions, theories as well as
understanding the history and evolution of world cinema and Cameroon cinema.
The young amateurs who had neither training nor qualification as filmmakers,
but just may be because an aunt or an uncle had offered them camcorders from
the Western world and they go around shooting films difficult to view in
Cameroon and International contexts, puzzled me. I was flabbergasted, stunned,
astounded and staggered when no one could give me a tangible reason why the historical brand
name for the Cameroon Film Industry – “CFI” was suddenly transformed into “COLLYWOOD”.
I found it as total imitation. Aristotle approximated
that: ‘‘Life is imitation”. Imitation in some contexts is
somehow a circular logic that continues to fashion the world today in a
direction of cliché.
I am strongly convinced that Aristotle’s definition
was not clear to some filmmakers. Many countries as well as some Cameroon
filmmakers have attempted and are going on with an atrocious
imitation of the ideology behind Hollywood. To my understanding, prove me wrong; imitation does
not mean “Everlasting copy work”. I
think from a dictionary definition: ORIGIN
late Middle English: from Latin imitation (n-), from the verb imitari. “im.i.ta.tion”,
from its phonetic transcription |imi’tā
sh ən|…
in addition to it as a noun, it is “a
thing intended to simulate or copy something else : [as an adjective] “The action of using someone or something as a model”. Interesting
enough because Madiba Nelson Mandela is a model to many people in the world
especially, if related to “Invictus” Morgan Freeman would not be left apart.
Considering
imitation as a phrase, the definition
will be: “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”. Making it proverbial
“copying
someone or something is an implicit way of paying them a compliment.”
Clinking on the proverbial definition, one could hold strong to the fact that
we are in the Postcolonial era and it seems as if some Cameroon filmmakers have
remained constant with the fulfillment
of the requirements of courtesy. It somehow makes
sense to give compliments in filmmaking, but highly inadmissible to brand the
name of a film industry from a capitalist as well as a post colonially
distorted manner that generation may come to question the founders of a nation.
It cannot be an over-emphasis that all the countries that are carrying the “lywood” addendums can be considered to
be under some form of Postcolonial colonialism. It splinters a pleasant debate
on the Anthropology of African cinema. The major question is: “why is it that only countries in development
are subscribed to the philosophy of the “lywood” addendum? If it was a
generic name that characterizes the universality of filmmaking, then countries
like: Britain should have had “Britiwood”,
Germany “Germiwood”, Spain as “Spaniwood” as well as Belgium with “Belgiwood”. Adopting “COLLYWOOD” as a
form of cinematographic branding operation is a wound that is opened for
outsiders to mock at one’s preys.
CFI is more appropriate than Collywood
It is weird because there are ten regions in Cameroon
and there are no such regions as ANGLOPHONE or FRANCOPHONE. It may be more appropriate
if CFI is maintained as a historical brand name. CFI
could have been a magnificent platform to bring together the East and the West
Cameroons as well as to continue to discourage the notion of the Anglophone and
Franco-phobia that separate the country for no tangible or palpable reason.
Whereas, English and French are colonial languages that are tools to may be
establish bewilderment, perplexity, mystification, disorder, as well as
uncertainty among peaceful people. It is equally interesting to duplicate and
try to be like, just as my daughter learns to speak by imitation.
When
charity begins at home, it should not end there. Emulation and attempting
creation could have been the best approach because it sets a place for one to
assert his own identity. Cameroon filmmaking would serve as a magnificent
international mouth watering sausage if Cameroonians start to make use of
precious time to think about how collaborative work can be done positively:
just like the film signals: “SILENCE…” “STANDBY…” “TAPE ROLLING…” “ACTION…”
“IT’S A WRAP…”, rather than spending precious time to invent and generate
unnecessary divergences, be at odds, concur, skirmish or conflicts that would
make one to instead spend much time on solving quandaries while others are
making films and making money on the other part of the world. Lets also stand
our grounds, use filmmaking and tell OUR own stories as well as make OUR own
films, worthy of OUR own culture, OUR own history, OUR own Anthropology and
make the outside world to take pleasure in them as the Nigerians have done all
over the globe.
Addendum:
More development on some of the factors
that account for the slow pace of the Cameroon Film Industry. A brief
historicity of Cameroon cinema, a review of some early and contemporary filmmakers
like Dikongue Pipa, Daniel Kamwa, Bassek Ba Khobio, Cyril Masso and Agbor
Gilbert.
Contact:
zoomerstt@yahoo.fr
More about Collywood on http://stephaniedongmo.blogspot.com/2010/07/collywood-le-hollywood-du-cameroun.html
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