Guests

Claire Andrade-Watkins (USA)

Dr. Andrade-Watkins, a historian and filmmaker, has published extensively on French- and Portuguese-speaking African cinema in leading academic journals and film publications including Framework, Research in African Literatures, International Journal of African History, Journal of Visual Anthropology, and The Independent. She is co-editor of Blackframes: Critical Perspectives on Black Independent Cinema. She was a 1995-1996 Fulbright Scholar in Cape Verde, where she conducted research on indigenous cinema in Cape Verde. With a 1997 grant from the American Philosophical Society, she researched colonial cinema in Lisbon. In the early 1990's, she hosted the US premiere of Flora Gomes' BLUE EYES OF YONTA at the Coolidge Corner Theater.

She is currently working on an award-winning "documemoire," Some Kind of Funny Porto Rican, about the Cape Verdean community in Providence, Rhode Island. Other documentaries she produced include The Spirit of Cape Verde, a half-hour documentary celebrating the bonds between New England, Cape Verde and President Aristides Periera's historical first visit to the United States in 1983. She was an Associate Producer on "Odyssey", a national PBS anthropology and archaeology documentary series, and Assistant to the Producer on Sankofa, an internationally acclaimed feature film on slavery by filmmaker Haile Gerima.

Claire Andrade-Watkins is President of SPIA Media Production, 'BRINGING THE AFRICANA DIASPORA TO LIFE'

Olivier Barlet (France)

Born in Paris in 1952, Olivier Barlet has published numerous translations of books both about Africa and written by Africans, along with a number of his own works. Journalist and film critic, Barlet writes for several magazines and journals. He is editor of the series "Images Plurielles" with L'Harmattan Press, which additionally published his award-winning book Les Cinémas d'Afrique noire : le regard en question (1997 Prize 'Art and Essay' from the National Cinematography Center of France,) translated into four languages (English title: African Cinema : Decolonizing the Gaze, Zed Books 2000.) Since 1997, Barlet has served as Editor-in-Chief of Africultures (L'Harmattan Press) a monthly magazine of African culture. The bilingual French/English Africultures website features a vast database on African Cinema. www.africultures.com

St.Clair Bourne (USA)

St. Clair Bourne was born in 1943 in Harlem, New York. While attending Georgetown University in the 1960s, he became active in the peace movement and left college to join the Peace Corps. Stationed in Lima, Peru, Bourne became something of a local celebrity when he took on the editing and publishing duties of the Spanish newspaper El Comeno. His work on the paper led to him being written up in a feature article in Ebony magazine. After his service, Bourne attended Syracuse University where he graduated in 1967 with a dual degree in Journalism and Political Science. On a scholarship, Bourne continued his education at the Columbia University Graduate School for Arts where he studied filmmaking. He was expelled, however, after his involvement in a peace movement demonstration ended in the takeover of the administration building. Not long after leaving the University, Bourne was recommended to executive producer, William Greaves, to work on a series called The Black Journal (notable for becoming the first black public affairs television series in the United States) for public television. In his three year tenure on the series, Bourne helped the program to win an Emmy award and earned himself a John Russworm Citation for Excellence in Broadcasting. Bourne left the program in 1971 and formed his own production company, Chamba. With Chamba, Bourne continues to write, produce, and direct award winning and highly acclaimed features and documentaries. Starting in 1972, Bourne also served as publisher of the highly regarded newsletter Chamba Notes. Bourne continues to contribute articles to major publications that promote discussion of political and cultural issues as well as the art of filmmaking. He is known as the father of the African-American documentary and has made 42 films, among which, the making of Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing."

Ngwarsungu Chiwengo (Democratic Republic of Congo)

Dr.Chiwengo is a Congolese scholar of African and African-American literature, political activitist, and Director of the World Literature Program at Creighton University where she is a professor of English. She has been a member of a number of political organizations in the Congo where she has served as a US representative for the PDSC. Dr.Chiwengo has taught at the University of Lumumbashi (DRC), at Samford University and at Creighton. She has written numerous articles and given many papers on wide-ranging issues in African and African-American literature and politics. Her forthcoming book is entitled Understanding Cry, the Beloved Country.

Flora Gomes (Guinea Bissau)

Flora (Florentino) Gomes was born in 1949 in Cadique, Guinea Bissau. He studied film in 1972 at the Cuban Institute of Arts and Cinematography under the direction of Santiago Alvarez before working with filmmaker Paulin S. Vieyra in Senegal. He later co-directed two short films "La reconstruction" (The Reconstruction) and "Anos no oça lura". In 1987, he directed his first feature film "Mortu nega" which received two special commendations from the jury at the Venice Film Festival in 1988, then "Yonta's Blue Eyes" selected for the Un certain regard section at the Cannes Film Festival in 1992. "Po di sangui" was his third feature film, screened in the official competition at Cannes in 1996.

Julian Henriques (Great Britain)

Julian Henriques is the producer and director of television dramas and documentaries including Derek Walcott: Poet of the Island, The Green Man, States of Exile, and Dictating Terms (produced by BBC Music & Arts), and Carimac (produced by the Caribbean Institute of Media and Communication, Jamaica), among others. He is a lecturer at Goldsmiths College, Department of Media and Communications, and resides in London, England.

Pierre Mumbere Mujomba (Democratic Republic of Congo)

Congolese playwright and novelist, Pierre Mumbere Mujomba is the author of seven plays and a novel, Ecce Ego, which was published in France in 2002. His conflict with the Congolese government began in January 2003, after the performance in French of his play, The Last Envelope, in Kinshasa. A 'commedia-style' farce with extravagant language, a detailed plot and underhanded allegory, the play reveals excesses of the Mobutu regime in the former Zaire. Shortly after its first performance, Mujomba was threatened and his landlord was kidnapped. With the intervention of PEN International, he was able to leave the Congo and to undertake a residency at Villa Aurora, the Foundation for European-American Relations in Pacific Palisades, California. Although most of Mujomba's work is not yet available in English, The Last Envelope was translated and performed in New York in 2002 by the Lark Theatre Company. The Last Envelope won Le Grand Prix at the Prix Nemis in Chile in 1988 and the Decouverte RFI Theatre Sud Prize in 1999. Mr.Mujomba will be leading a screenwriting panel in this year's Africana Film Festival.

Mweze D.Ngangura

Born in Buvaku (Zaire) in 1950 Mweze Dieudonné Ngangura studied film art at the Institut des Arts de Diffusion (Brussels) where he received a Director's Diploma in 1976. He was a professor at the “Institut National des Arts” (I.N.A.) and at the “Studio-Ecole de la voix du Zaïre” (SEVOZA) in Kinshasa (Zaire) from 1976 to 1985. During this period he directed the documentary “Chéri Samba” (26'), a portrayal of a young popular painter from Zaire.This was followed by “Kin Kiesse” (26'), a critical eye on Kinshasa. “Kin Kiesse” won the “Best Documentary Prize” in Ouagadougou (FESPACO 1983). In 1986, he finalised the screenplay of the successful feature film entitled “La Vie est Belle” (Life is Rosy)(87') which he co-directed with Benoît Lamy in 1987. His 1993 documentary “Changa-Changa” (59') focuses on music and the meeting of cultures in Brussels.  His film “Le Roi, la Vache et le Bananier” (The King, the Cow and the Banana Tree) (60') won two prizes : the “Documentary Prize” and the “Special Prize of the Jury”, at Festival “Vues d'Afrique” in Montreal in May 1994, and was followed in 1995 by another documentary : “ Lettre à Makura: les derniers bruxellois” (Letter to Makura : the last Brussels' tribe) (25'), about an african ethnologist on the Marolliens, the oldest community of Brussels.  In 1997 he made a documentary “Le Général Tombeur” which reports the history of Bukavu, from the expedition of General Charles-Henri Tombeur in 1914-1918 until recent events.In 1998, he directed the succesful feature film ”Pièces d'identités” (I. D. or pieces of identities) (93'), which won many international awards including the famous “Yennenga Stalion” at Fespaco ‘ 99.  In 2001, he directed the documentary  “Au nom de mon père” (In the name of my father) about a young Congolese hospital attendant whose main obsession is to go back to his native country.

Mbala Nkanga (Democratic Republic of Congo)

Assistant Professor (theatre studies, world drama), Mbala Nkanga is a native of the Democratic Republic of Congo where he grew up and worked as a teacher, director and scholar, is now at the University of Michigan. Since 1979, he has taught directing, scenography and dramaturgical analysis at the Institut National des Arts in Kinshasa (DRC). He directed plays in various professional companies there, such as Bernard Dadié's Béatrice du Congo, Wole Soyinka's A Dance of the Forests, Réné Kalisky's Aïda Vaincue. From 1982 to 1986 he directed the recording of radio drama for the prestigious Radio France-Internationale's Concours Théâtral Interafricain. One of the plays is Diur Ntumb's Zaina (Grand Prix 1982), which he brought to the stage and screen. He adapted for the stage and directed Maryse Condé's Segu. He was the head of the research center in performing arts and music (CEDAR) at Institut National des Arts. He has completed extensive research in French theatre and drama, and Central African performance traditions. He is a former Fulbright scholar and winner of Northwestern University's Gwendolyn Carter Award for Academic Excellence. He holds a PhD in Performance Studies from Northwestern University, an MA in Theatre and Drama from Indiana University, and a BA in History and Directing from the Institut National des Arts in Kinshasa.