The Adventures of Cosmic Yoruba
& Her Flying Machines too
Taafé Fanga is a film about a group of Dogon women who, with the power of a mask, manage to subvert gender roles in their mountainous village. Taafé Fanga has elements of comedy (which may not translate well outside a West African audience) yet, the heart of Taafé Fanga is female empowerment. The film begins…
–ephemere, is taking pre-orders for a calligraphy poembook: Kandila will be a little book rendered completely, from the title page to the very last leaf, in calligraphy. It will feature three of my (rather long!) bilingual love poems to my country, the Philippines, rendered in different calligraphic styles, as well as a few pages of…
Before actually writing about my fun times in Western Asia, can I write about the process of getting there? I counted and in the past weeks I have boarded six planes. SIX. And I am not counting the two flights I had to catch from Abuja to Lagos because I went with Emirates (and came…
I like to picture this as a snowball. ‘This’ being my regularly increasing knowledge on the shared history between the African and the Asian continents. I admit that I thought the ‘wow’ moments ended with my posts on historical Sino-African relations. When we think about the African Diaspora, most of us turn our attention to…
I recall a period in which I was searching desperately for films directed by Ousmane Sembene, always coming up empty handed. Now I have watched most of his iconic movies from Xala (1975) to Ceddo (1975). The latest addition to that list is Faat Kiné (2000). I had no idea that he released a film…
I have a new essay up on Beyond Victoriana looking into the history of Ganvié, a village built entirely on a lake in Benin Republic that was built by people from several ethnic groups that are now known as the Tofinu. Ganvié is a water town situated on the northern edge of the Lake Nokoué…
Date Wine (1998) is a movie directed by Radwan el-Kashef. I only caught the movie halfway through but I enjoyed it thoroughly because it reminded me of Almacita, Soul of Desolato. Date Wine explores the effect on an Egyptian village when all the men abandon home in search of greener pastures leaving behind the women…
That African Girl asked me some questions for her ‘Behind the Words’ series in which she interviews a cross-section of African members of the blogosphere. I was so honoured (and humbled) by her choosing to interview me, Makafui had such kind words to say about me (n_n) Next up in the Behind the words series,…
A more specific title would be ‘Nollywood for Child Rights, Women’s Rights and Against Human Trafficking’. For those of you who don’t know, I currently work with a non-governmental organisation and part of my job entails attending all sorts of meetings. Last week, I attended press conference at ActionAid on their new project, in collaboration…
Hyenas (Hyènes) is a movie directed by Djibril Diop Mambéty, a.k.a "the most paradoxical filmmaker in the history of African cinema", "the African Dionysus," "the prince of Colobane." Hyenas is part of Mambéty’s trilogies about the ‘power of craziness’; [It] tells the story of Linguere Ramatou, an aging, wealthy woman who revisits her home village…