During the month of December, 1997, I witnessed several troubling events in Cameroon: In my village a young boy was nearly lynched by mob “justice” in a lawless state. I went to a wedding and learned that, by law, the husband is the ruler of the family. A highly respected journalist was imprisoned without a trial for writing an article about the health of the president.
While seemingly unrelated, these incidents bear witness to disturbing tendencies in Cameroon today: they are all point to the ways in which the abuse of power permeates everyday life in an authoritarian society.
CHIEF! brings these events together to allow us to reflect upon the current state of Cameroonian society with its hierarchies, inequalities and lack of respect for human rights–all the by-products of a dictatorship.

Lisez plus sur LA’A LOM

Lien Vimeo :https://vimeo.com/ondemand/183759

Lisez plus sur LA’A LOM

Lisez plus sur LA’A LOM

Moïse et ses camarades partagent ainsi en musique, la vie des habitants des quartiers populaires des villes, et celles des paysans de diverses régions du pays dans leur lutte quotidienne pour trouver des solutions durables au problème de l’eau, responsable selon des médecins de deux maladies sur trois dans cette région du monde où l’EAU NE MANQUE PAS.

Lisez plus sur LA’A LOM

As in the folktale, Sobgui, a former computer programmer who now drives a « clando » cab in Douala, travels to Europe to buy cars and to escape for a while his life in Cameroon which has become unbearable. In Cologne (Germany), Sobgui joins a community of African emigrants. Most are hard-working and ambitious people. Sobgui begins a love affair with Irene, a German political activist who encourages Sobgui to return home and fight for change.

Lisez plus sur LA’A LOM

Pressed into service by a neighbor, Jean-Marie Teno turns what might have been a typical wedding video into a subtle and intimate portrait of polygamy in contemporary Cameroon. Filming the celebration in great cultural detail, Teno is also implicated in the interpersonal drama of the welcoming of the second wife into an already established household. Members of Alex’s family and his friends sing songs about the harmony that the new wife, Josephine, will bring, but the silence of Elise, the first wife, and the tears of Josephine herself, force spectators to imagine how Alex and his wives will negotiate the new arrangements.

Those in attendance speak directly to the camera, congratulating the newlyweds and later describing their attitudes toward polygamy. Alex’s friends defend the practice as, alternately, an expression of cultural rights, as tacit resistance to European mores, or as the result of man’s nature. Elise, Alex’s first wife refuses to speak to Teno, who wants to give her a chance to express the pain she clearly feels. While the men assert that god gave man a sword sharpened on both sides to use, Elise sardonically agrees that yes, and he must then cut down everything in his path and lose no time doing so. Teno’s quiet presence gradually reveals the complex set of expectations in which each of the players is caught, including the filmmaker. Though the viewer understands Teno’s position on the matter, his personal voice adds moral force to his sensitively-delivered critique of polygamy. Alex’s Wedding, accomplished with respectful camerawork and an evenhanded treatment of all involved, is a moving call to debate….

Lisez plus sur LA’A LOM

In The Colonial Misunderstanding Jean-Marie Teno sheds light on the complex and problematic relationship between colonization and European missionaries on the African continent.
The film looks at Christian evangelism as the forerunner of European colonialism in Africa, indeed, as the ideological model for the relationship between North and South even today. In particular it looks at the role of missionaries in Namibia on the centenary of the 1904 German genocide of the Herrero people there. It reveals how colonialism destroyed African beliefs and social systems and replaced them with European ones as if they were the only acceptable routes to modernity. As Prof. F. Kangué Ewané says in the film: “I can forgive Westerners for taking away my land …but not for taking away my mind and soul.”
Through an examination of the work of German missionary societies in Africa whose vocation was to bring Christianity – and by extension, European culture and European rule – to the heathens, Jean Marie Teno reveals The Colonial Misunderstanding.

Lisez plus sur LA’A LOM

Lisez plus sur LA’A LOM

Irene Pesonka, a qualified civil servant in a government ministry, has to take on a second job, selling doughnuts at a roadside stand, to make ends meet.

Pascale Marthine Tayou, a sculptor and poet, who finds his working material in the huge piles of garbage which clog the streets of Yaounde, dubs on « slum art », his artistic expression, through which he unveils the decrepit state of Cameroonian society.

The stories of these three individuals describe the chaos of urban life in Cameroon in 1994 and illustrate the vital role played by the « informal economic sector » in which more and more Cameroonians operate.

Lisez plus sur LA’A LOM

Exécuté par les autorités camerounaises en 1971, Ernest Ouandié, le combattant pour la liberté, laisse derrière lui Ernestine, une fille qu’il n’a jamais connu. A travers le témoignage d’Ernestine, Une Feuille dans le vent expose les conséquences psychologiques du colonialisme et nous laisse avec cette question : le sacrifice serait-il le prix à payer pour la liberté ?

Lisez plus sur LA’A LOM