Fatou Kiné Sène, film critic
Approaching the big screen is peering into the world. The Women for Africa Foundation, faithful to its appointment with cinema as a place of observation and reflection, brought the Senegalese critic Fatou Kiné Sène to Spain in June. With her we talked about African cinemas and the universality of their proposals.
For more than a decade, the Women for Africa Foundation has placed special interest in cinema – that made by African women directors – as a strategic place from which to understand and think about social transformations. Through its sessions, programmed under the title “They are cinema” and curated by Guadalupe Arensburg, the Foundation brings a selection of films from various African countries each year. In the last edition of the program, it was projected Banel and Adamaby the Senegalese Ramata Toulaye Sy (See MN no. 693, p. 51), whose subsequent colloquium was attended by Fatou Kiné Sène, a film critic from that West African country.
Kiné Sène’s interest in cinema began in childhood. “Every Wednesday they showed films at my school and after each session there was a debate,” he remembers. A movie marked her: Rue Cases Nègres, by Euzhan Palcy, based on a novel by Joseph Zobel. «It is an initiation film that talks about black people, but mainly about childhood. “It enlightened me in many ways,” he says. Years later, his boss asked him one day to cover a premiere at the Paris cinema, in Dakar. “The film was Harry Potter. From that moment on, I started going every Wednesday, the day of the premieres. It was his transition point into film criticism, which culminated when he participated in a call organized by the African Federation of Film Critics. “I applied and went to my first FESPACO, the Pan-African Film and Television Festival in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), where every two years African and diaspora filmmakers come together,” says the Senegalese, recalling the training she received from Clément Tapsoba, first president of the aforementioned Federation. Since then, Kiné Sène has published her reviews on the Africine website, has been president of the Senegalese Association of Film Critics and became president of the African Federation of Film Critics. Her work has allowed her to travel around the world, attending festivals such as Cannes, the International Women’s Film Festival in Salé (Morocco) or the Festival Films Femmes Afrique, in Dakar (Senegal). She is currently the head of culture and society at the Senegalese Press Agency. «I specialize in African cinematography, but, as critics, we do not limit ourselves to watching only films from the continent; “We want to be open to see what happens in other places.”
Get out of the ghetto
Precisely, one of the Senegalese’s strongest positions is her rejection of African cinema and literature being often confined to specialized sections. According to her, this classification “weakens African cinema”, which should be inserted in the general sections so that the works are seen as part of the global context. “Having specialized sections is as if we were not practicing a profession that is universal,” he says. «Today we see the advance of Asian cinema on the international scene and we always wonder why African films cannot have the same notoriety. Why are they separate films? I think when you see Touki Bouki, by Djibril Diop Mambéty, acclaimed throughout the world, you realize that Africans make films like everyone else, with the same techniques. We may have our unique stories, but I don’t understand why they don’t have the same notoriety as others,” he says.
Kiné Sène points out the variety that exists in the different African filmographies. Specifically, the Senegalese film stands out both for its diversity and for its thematic evolution. Since his first film, in 1955, Africa south seine, directed by Paulin Soumanou Vieyra and other authors, to the works of filmmakers such as Ousmane Sembène –La noire de…, Mooladeetc.–, Senegalese cinema has explored a wide range of themes ranging from colonization and independence to contemporary problems. «Nowadays there are also young women who contribute new things. For example, they address rural problems, those of farmers,” he mentions, highlighting the work of Ramata Toulaye Sy and his film Banel and Adama, whose projection gave rise to the conversation.
The diaspora also plays an important role in Senegalese cinematography. Filmmakers like Mati Diop explore the topic of migration and the experiences of young Africans abroad. Criticism highlights, among others, An air of Kora, by Angèle Diabang, which addresses interreligious relations through a love story between a Muslim girl and a Christian monk. The film won the Poulain de Bronce at FESPACO in 2019 in the short film category.
The conversation jumps from film to film and stops at Jusqu’a à la fin des temps (Until the end of time), by the Algerian Yasmine Chouikh. «It is a very beautiful film about life and death. It is the story of two sexagenarians who fall in love in a cemetery. It is a comedic and beautiful film that changes our perception of death. “I will never forget it,” he says after recommending a good handful of other titles, especially from his country. «However, Senegalese cinema has had to face a difficult situation in recent times. Since 2021, but especially since the first months of 2024, political and social instability has had a considerable impact on film production. It affected us a lot, there were no filming or screenings,” says Kiné Sène, recalling that insecurity and fear of going out on the streets paralyzed premieres and screenings and even affected the famous Dakar Biennial of contemporary art, which had to be postponed. .
International cinema
We often talk about African cinema, but there is no African or European cinema per se, The journalist maintains, “it is the story that defines the dimension of the film. We live in a global world where all questions can challenge anyone, whether in Africa or anywhere,” he defends. Furthermore, as he emphasizes, “the local can lead us to the global, and it is important that the particular stories of a territory are told and understood beyond its borders.” The accessibility and popularity of cinema made in Africa has increased thanks to digital platforms. Right now, films from Nollywood, the Nigerian film industry, are seen all over the continent. As Kiné Sène attests, television channels in Senegal broadcast these stories continuously – he even mentions social networks – although “the magic of cinema cannot be compared to what we see there, which are ephemeral things that pass quickly and are lost. When you watch a movie, you learn something or it awakens emotions in you about a certain topic that the director wanted to show you through a movie. We can agree or not. But I believe that cinema serves to raise awareness,” says the expert in African cinematography, whose productions demonstrate, with their stories and quality, that they should not only have a place in the general sections, but are also essential to understanding the richness of global cinematographic narrative.
