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Namibian Premiere: “Naked Reality” - Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s New Afrofuturistic Sci-Fi Feature Film
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Event information
| Info | Entrance: 40,- N$; Open Air Screening |
| Address | FNCC Cinema | Robert Mugabe Ave 118 Windhoek |
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On the occasion of the closing of the 10th anniversary of the film series “African Perspectives”, AfricAvenir & FNCC showcase one of Africa’s most outstanding filmmakers and his latest Afrofuturistic SciFi feature film: the Namibian Premiere of “Naked Reality”, directed by Jean-Pierre Bekolo (Cameron, 2016, 62 min).
Wanita leaves home one morning, not knowing that her first prayer to her own ancestors has started her journey to the Dimsi the earth you can’t see. Wanita could not figure out that her journey was blinded by her other self; her desire to be someone else. It is 150 years from now in a time when African cities have grown into one big metropolis. Operating in a world controlled by the immortals who had taken over our whole being. Wanita was the only one who could save us. She was the first of a new generation that was not just working at a job. She was working to fulfill her mission according to her DNA instructions but someone had infiltrated her DNA, this is why she could not hear our calling.
Press
"Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s film Naked Reality speaks in the future tense, pushing into the territory of visual experimentalism on an Afro-futuristic quest. The geometric shapes, the organic movement and long stylised transitions are part of an exploration of a new aesthetic could only have worked in high contrast black and white." Sarah Dawson
"Naked Reality, the latest from the prolific Cameroonian auteur Jean Pierre Bekolo (Les Saignettes, Le Complot d’Aristotle) is described as an afro—futuristic cinematic fable, and centers around a mysterious character named Wanita, who is positioned as a savior in a dystopic world, where African cities have become one huge metropolis." By Dylan Valley, Africasacountry
NAKED REALITY
2016, 62 min.
directed by Jean Pierre Bekolo
starring Weza Da Silva, Luthuli Dlamini, Akin Omotoso, Fabian Lojede
The Director
Jean-Pierre Bekolo is an avant-garde filmmaker whose imaginative work overturns stereotypes of Africa and African cinema. His entertaining films operate on multiple layers, engaging viewers with thrilling stories, biting humour and dramatic aesthetics. He was born June 8th, 1966 in Yaounde, he studied physics at University of Yaounde and Television production (editing) at Institute National de l’Audiovisuel – INA in Paris where he also studied semiotics under Christian Metz.
1992 Jean-Pierre Bekolo is a noted African film director from Cameroon. He already garnered attention at the Cannes Film Festival with his debut film Quartier Mozart made at the age of 25, with a style that is playful, comic, and sardonic became the representative of a new generation that has been working against the restrictive expectations of African cinema, mixing genres and linking pop with politics. Quartier Mozart won number of awards (Locarno, Montreal… and was nominated for the Surtherland Trophy in London along with Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs.)
An advocate of artistic freedom, Bekolo is committed to realising Africa’s philosophies and cultures. Quartier Mozart shows the hybridity, complexity and humour in urban Yaounde in a playful, hip-hop reinvention of a traditional tale about gender, power, magic and politics.
1995 He directed Aristotle’s Plot , the African entry in the British Film Institute’s series of films commemorating the centenary of cinema that has included the participation of artists such as Scorsese, Bertolucci, Frears, Miller, Reitz, and Godard. Part action movie send-up, part parody of Aristotle’s rules, part satire on Africa’s preoccupation with itself, this first African film selected at Sundance shows Bekolo to be an “increasingly fearless trickster.”
Aristotle’s Plot parodies rules and definitions, action movies and ‘African’ cinema made for European audiences, while aesthetically reflecting on the nature of existence, its ambiguities and absence of rigid categories.
1996 Bekolo’s work on the re-representation of Africa also includes insightful documentaries that seek to educate, such as Grandmother’s Grammar on groundbreaking Senegalese filmmaker Djibril Diop Mambety.
2005 His avant-garde political thriller Les Saignantes premiered at the Toronto film festival, was nominated in two categories at the French Césars (2009); it is considered to be the first African sci-fi movie. Les Saignantes won the Silver Stallion & Best Actress Awards at Fespaco (Pan African Film Festival Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso) in 2007.
This dystopian, sci-fi comic thriller with stunning surreal visuals, presents extreme corruption, feminism, social decay and intergenerational conflict for review.
2013 Banned in Cameroon in 2013, Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s controversial film Le President (2015 AMAA Awards Best screenplay and Jury Special Prize) Aiming to incite viewers to conceive an alternate reality, his fake documentary The President is a hilarious, biting satire on African leaders who cling to power.
2015 Les Choses et Les Mots de Mudimbe on the renowned Congolese philosopher, multi-linguist and uber-polymath. This 4 hours documentary was part of the official selection of the 2015 Berlinale. “An unusual film, as fascinating as its object/subject, opulent, sensitive, clever, and radical. Another station of delightful postcolonial, cosmopolitan filmmaking”.
Jean-Pierre Bekolo won the 2015 Prince Claus Award. He is awarded for his creative resistance, irreverence and eclectic African reworking of dominant cinema conventions; for creating a unique body of innovative work that both entertains and transmits profound socio-political messages; for his highly original aesthetics; for challenging misrepresentations of African cultures; and for re-affirming the power of film. He was in 2015 a fellow of the Artists Program at the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in Berlin.