Film Festival Programmer invites Africans to film China

Ssenkaaba Samson and mentor Sherman Ong film a river in fog/Pnoto provided by Gertjan Zuilhof

By Liang Meilan

While busily selecting movies from around the world to screen at the 40-year-old Rotterdam Film Festival (IFFR), festival programmer Gertjan Zuilhof is inviting seven African filmmakers to Beijing over the next two months to produce short films about China.

Having been in China only once before and speaking nearly no Mandarin, Zuilhof said the idea came to him as a “self-inflicted shock.” He wrote on this blog that the idea “more or less jumped on my back when I was not watching my back properly.”

Last year’s IFFR put great focus on long “silent” African films, with several projects conducted in African countries. Zuilhof’s “Forget Africa” – in which he brought 12 Asian directors to make films in Africa – was one of them. “To continue enlarging the voice of African films, this year’s program will be called ‘Raiding Africa,’” said the 55-year-old Dutchman.

Yet the idea of such a project was inspired by another more personal experience.

“Raiding Africa is actually a follow-up of last year’s project,” Zuilhof said. “I was shocked by the huge numbers of Chinese people in Africa when doing Forget Africa. So the more general and thematic reason is the importance of Chinese presence in Africa in terms of investment and other aspects.”

“The Africans see their lives changing because of the Chinese people. They would be interested in seeing the real lives of the Chinese people in their country in more human, social and scientific aspects.”

Zuilhof initiated the project also as a way of helping African filmmakers hone their skills.

“They don’t have enough money to go to Europe and learn very professional filmmaking approaches,” he said. “But they still can do something here with less money. The way that some of the Chinese filmmakers work with less equipment and smaller crews is valuable for African filmmakers.”

Six experienced Asian film directors, including Sherman Ong from Singapore and Ying Liang from China, will act as mentors.

A budget of 4,000 (36,000 yuan) raised by Zuilhof comes from IFFR, some foundations and film festivals in Sweden, Italy and South Africa. “Though these festivals offered just small amounts of money, they promised to show the films when they come out. So the movies will travel and spread,” Zuilhof said.

The first African filmmaker to arrive was Ssenkaaba Samson from Uganda, an experimental filmmaker who specializes in hip-hop videos. “He has not yet set his subject. Making an impromptu film with fresh eyes is what he wants to do here,” Zuilhof said. “But some of the other filmmakers are busy researching in China to make short films or documentaries.”
 
Here in the capital, Zuilhof found a partner in Li Xianting Film School. “Choosing Li Xiangting Film School as a collaborator was coincidental,” Zuilhof said. “I knew some of the filmmakers in China, such as IFFR prizewinner Ying Liang, are teachers at the school. Then I proposed the school offer its venue and equipment for a workshop.”

The past decade has seen numerous Chinese independent films screened at IFFR, some of which won top prizes. Zuilhof singled out two reasons why Europeans like these films.

“One is that [the filmmakers] can work quickly and make a lot of films without many problems in financing. The other thing is, European movies, even the good ones, are often quite artificial. We get the feeling that independent movies from China hit closer to real lives and to personal experiences with authentic elements,” he said.