Thursday,
February 14 at 7pm
Scribe
Video
Center
Colonial
Misunderstanding (Le Malentendu Colonial) - Philadelphia
Premiere
dir.
Jean-Marie Teno, Cameroon, 2004, video, 73 mins, color, French,
German and English w/ English subtitles
Director
Jean-Marie Teno in person
Pre-film
reception at 6pm
"When
the missionaries arrived, the Africans had the land and the
missionaries had the Bible. They taught us to pray with our
eyes closed. When we opened our eyes, they had the land and
we had the Bible." - Jomo
Kenyatta, Kenya's first elected Prime Minister and President
 Le
Malentendu Colonial
carries forward the thesis director Jean-Marie Teno so eloquently
began in Afrique, je te plumerai where he argued that
Africa could only find its way forward into the 21st century
if it affirmed its own traditions. The film looks at European
colonialism in Africa through the lens of Christian evangelism,
indeed as the model for the relationship between North and South
even today. Teno’s often droll commentary scrutinizes in particular
the role of German missionaries in Namibia on the centenary
of the 1904 German genocide of the Herrero people. 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.
Teno
writes “The humanitarians of today have replaced the missionaries
of yesterday. Colonization has turned over a new leaf of globalization
but in Africa there is nothing new on the horizon; a little
more charity and less and less justice.”
Jean-Marie Teno is an acclaimed filmmaker whose works have been
centerpieces at the international art exhibition, Documenta,
the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar and at film festivals on five
continents. Born in Cameroon, he studied communications at the
University of Valenciennes (France), and then began work as
a film critic for the magazine Bwana. In 1985, he was
hired as an editor at FR3 (French National Television) where
he worked until 1997. In 1983, Teno made his first film, the
documentary short Schubbah. His feature documentary
Afrique, je te plumerai (1992) is one of the most
insightful examinations of the cultural damage created by Europe’s
colonization of Africa. He has continued filmmaking, moving
effortlessly between documentary and fiction. His other
films include Le mariage d’Alex (2002), Vacances
au pays (2000) and Chef! (1999) and La tÚte
dans les nuages (1994).
Afrique,
je te plumerai where
he argued that Africa could only find its way forward into the
21st century if it affirmed its own traditions. The film
looks at European colonialism in Africa through the lens of
Christian evangelism, indeed as the model for the relationship
between North and South even today. Teno’s often droll commentary
scrutinizes in particular the role of German missionaries in
Namibia on the centenary of the 1904 German genocide of the
Herrero people. 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.
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