{"id":6812,"date":"2018-05-01T22:22:13","date_gmt":"2018-05-01T22:22:13","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2021-04-13T16:07:05","modified_gmt":"2021-04-13T15:07:05","slug":"film-season-at-the-barbican","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onecity.london\/film\/film-season-at-the-barbican\/","title":{"rendered":"Film Season at The Barbican"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new five-part film season at The Barbican<\/a><\/strong> starts this month, focusing on \u201cthe relationship between French and Francophone African cinema\u201d<\/strong>. Part of The Barbican\u2019s 2018 season The Art of Change<\/em>, Returning the Colonial Gaze<\/em><\/strong> will present audiences with bold postcolonial cinematography from the 50s through 70s<\/strong>, inclusive of work by \u201cMoroccan, Mauritanian, Senegalese and Nigerien directors\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Running from 2nd May until 30th May<\/strong>, the aim of these works was to literally mirror back and return the ‘colonial gaze’, presenting a new perspective, questioning the \u201cformer occupying nations\u201d<\/strong>, and further exploring \u201chow the arts respond to, reflect and potentially effect change in the social and political landscape\u201d<\/strong>. Challenging the Western viewpoint, these directorial voices were both purposefully disruptive and actively liberating; a powerful artistic reclamation of control<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Soleil O<\/strong><\/em> (18) opens the season on 2nd May<\/strong> and is unfortunately sold out, but it is this work by Med Hondo – \u201cone of the first films depicting the experience of migrating from the African Continent to France\u201d<\/strong> \u2013 that is most poignantly radical this season at The Barbican<\/a>. Acerbic, fast-paced, and influenced both by European avant-garde and West African oral traditions<\/strong>, Soleil O<\/em> remains a filmic \u201cpolitical awakening\u201d<\/strong>, portraying the experience of Mauritian-born accountant Jean and his dire immigrant experience in Paris.<\/p>\n

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Afrique 50 + To Be 20 in the Aur\u00e8s<\/strong><\/em> (18) is a Ren\u00e9 Vautier double-bill<\/strong>, the French activist filmmaker who described himself as \u201cthe most censored director in France\u201d<\/strong>. Screened on Cinema 3 on 9th May<\/strong>, Afrique 50<\/em> concerns itself with French colonial rule, while To Be 20 in Aur\u00e8s<\/strong> greatly criticises the Algerian war and the brainwashing of its conscripts into killing machines. Creator of over 150 movies, Vautier was regularly in trouble with the authorities<\/strong> over the content of his work, but Afrique 50<\/em> saw him imprisoned<\/strong>. Indeed, \u201ccensored for over 40 years\u201d, Afrique 50<\/em> is now considered France \u201cfirst anti-colonial film\u201d<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Afrique sur Seine + Little by Little<\/strong><\/em> (15) is another double-bill on 15th May<\/strong>, only these two films encapsulate precisely the sentiment of Returning the Colonial Gaze<\/em><\/strong>, depicting as they do black Africans \u2018discovering\u2019 France as a new country<\/strong> (\u2018touring\u2019 Paris; experiencing \u201cthe bizarre customs of that strange local tribe, Parisians\u201d). Paulin Soumanou Vieyra\u2019s 1955 Afrique sur Seine<\/em> was the \u201cfirst film made by Senegalese filmmakers\u201d<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Si Moh, The Unlucky Man + The East Wind<\/strong> <\/em>(18) grace The Barbican\u2019s<\/a> Cinema 3 on 23rd May<\/strong>, Moroccan director Moumen Smihi\u2019s purposeful non-Western filmic narratives<\/strong>, part of a post-independence drive to \u201cinvent new forms appropriate to the local culture\u201d<\/strong>. The East Wind<\/em> is certainly not to be missed as an example of the era\u2019s \u2018groundbreaking\u2019 cinematographic \u2018new language\u2019<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Finally, An Adventurer\u2019s Homecoming + Touki-Bouki<\/strong> <\/em>(18) bring a closing touch of comedy to Returning the Colonial Gaze<\/em> on 30th May<\/strong>, parodying as they do the genre of the Western and the film Easy Rider<\/em>. The intriguing question explored within this double-bill is, \u201cWhere is home when colonialism is your inheritance?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

All standard tickets<\/strong> are \u00a310.50; members \u00a38.40; concessions apply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new five-part film season at The Barbican starts this month, focusing on \u201cthe relationship between French and Francophone African cinema\u201d. Part of The Barbican\u2019s 2018 season The Art of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":6817,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1278,1279,1270,1275,1276,36,1277,1273,1274,1272],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onecity.london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6812"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onecity.london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onecity.london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onecity.london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onecity.london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6812"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/onecity.london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23688,"href":"https:\/\/onecity.london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6812\/revisions\/23688"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onecity.london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onecity.london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onecity.london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onecity.london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}