A scene from 'Timbuktu' by Abderrahmane Sissako

By A. D. McKenzie
CANNES, May 20 2014 (IPS)

Forget about ‘Grace of Monaco’. Some of the most noteworthy films at this year’s Cannes Film Festival deal with human rights and the fight for press freedom, and they come from directors who have had to overcome financing, censorship or infrastructure difficulties to tell stories that they believe need telling. 

‘Timbuktu’, by Mauritanian director Abderrahmane Sissako, is one of the 18 films in competition for the top Palme d’Or prize at the festival, and this visually striking work already has people talking, not only about the movie but about intolerance and the effects of conflict on civilians.

The film is set against the backdrop of religious extremism in northern Mali after jihadists took over in 2012, forcing women to change their way of dressing and banning music, cigarettes and even soccer.

During the reign of terror, the young parents of two children were stoned to death for the “transgression” of not being married, and Sissako cites that act as the motivation for his film.

The killing was an “unspeakable crime” to which the media “largely turned a blind eye”, the director says in an introduction to ‘Timbuktu’.“I must testify in the hopes that no child will ever again have to learn their parents died because they loved each other” – Mauritanian film director Abderrahmane Sissako

“The video of their killing, which was posted online by the perpetrators, is horrid. The woman dies struck by the first stone, while the man lets out a hollow rasp of a cry,” he states.

“What I write is unbearable, I know this. I am in no way trying to use shock value to promote a film. I can’t say I didn’t know and, now that I do, I must testify in the hopes that no child will ever again have to learn their parents died because they loved each other,” he adds.

‘Timbuktu’ uses poetic techniques to decry repression and the abuse of human rights. Emphasising the humanity of his characters, Sissako shows women resisting tyranny with dignity, and these are some of the reasons the film has gained many backers at the 12-day festival, which runs until May 25 in the southern French town.

Prizes will be announced on May 24, and many expect the director’s courage in bringing this story to the screen to be rewarded.

Souleymane Cissé, a Malian director whose film ‘Yeelen’ won the Jury Prize at the 1987 festival, travelled to Cannes this year to support Sissako. He told IPS that African filmmakers have a harder time than most to get their films made and then to obtain international distribution.

“Besides the issue of conflict, financing is still a huge problem,” said Cissé, director of the Union of Creators and Entrepreneurs of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts of Western Africa (UCECAO). “Even low-budget films have to fight for funding, and up until now there hasn’t been any political will to help because in Africa one doesn’t believe that cinema is an art and an industry.”

With more than 1,700 films submitted for consideration in Cannes and only a fraction chosen for the festival’s official selection, it is a tough game, whether one has a message or not. Still, another film that highlights human rights, and specifically press freedom, is ‘Caricaturistes – Fantassins de la Democratie’ (Cartoonists – Foot Soldiers of Democracy), a documentary “starring” 12 cartoonists from around the world that is being shown in the festival’s “out-of-competition”, special-screenings category.

Directed by French filmmaker Stéphanie Valloatto, the film follows cartoonists in countries including Tunisia, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, France, Israel and Venezuela, some of whom face risks as they use humour to confront injustice and hypocrisy.

It profiles Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat, for instance, who in 2011 was badly beaten by armed forces who tried to destroy his hands in an attempt to prevent him from ever drawing again. He had criticised the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in some of his cartoons.

Doctors managed to save Ferzat’s fingers following a successful campaign to get him out of Syria that was launched by Cartooning for Peace, a non-profit association co-founded in 2006 by the acclaimed French cartoonist Plantu and the former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The organisation, which worked closely with the filmmakers, aims to foster dialogue, promote freedom of expression and recognise the journalistic work of cartoonists. In an interview, Valloatto said the group inspired the film because movie producer Radu Mihaileanu had long admired their human-rights work and Plantu’s campaign for tolerance.

Volloatto was invited to direct because of her experience with documentaries. “Once I got to know Plantu and the work of Cartooning for Peace, I too was really impressed by what they’re doing,” she said.

She describes her real-life characters as “12 loveable lunatics, capturing the comic and tragic in all four corners of the earth.” The film says that the cartoonists “risk their lives to defend democracy, with a smile on their faces and a pencil as their only weapon.”

“The film has good humour as well as a serious message,” says Valloatto. “We hope it will be seen by a lot of people because it may give inspiration for all of us to fight for tolerance and human rights, no matter what sector we work in.”

An ironic footnote to ‘Caricaturistes’ is that a book scheduled to be released at the same time as the documentary was rejected by its French publisher because one of its cartoons was deemed offensive to the Catholic Church. Another company, Actes Sud, stepped in and will launch the book on May 28.

Other films at Cannes that focus on global, humanistic topics include the daring and deep ‘Winter Sleep’, also a contender for the Palme d’Or. This 3-hour-16-minute-long film explores relationships alongside the themes of inequality, the seemingly unbridgeable distance between rich and poor, and the role of religion in life.

By Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, the film is set in central Anatolia and uses stunning imagery, subtle humour and engrossing dialogue to keep viewers enthralled. At the end, one is left with questions about what the individual can do to bring about a better world, protect the rights of others and perhaps even achieve personal redemption.

‘Winter Sleep’ has received standing ovations in Cannes, compared with the whistles for ‘Grace of Monaco’ – a misguided tale about a princess. (END)

After brief and scattered successes, entertainment has gone back into hiding following bomb attacks by the Taliban. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Apr 13 2014 (IPS)

Mushfiq Wali, a 22-year-old shoemaker in northern Pakistan, loves watching films in the local Pashto language. But he says the Taliban are a killjoy: their bomb attacks have led to the closure of movie theatres, again. “They don’t spare anything that brings happiness.”

The extent of freedom to listen to music and to go to the cinema has become a barometer of the influence of the Taliban, and of just normal living. Music and cinema have been emerging as the language of a challenge to the Taliban, as surely as the Taliban have attacked music.The extent of freedom to listen to music and to go to the cinema has become a barometer for the influence of the Taliban.

“The past five years have been very difficult for musicians because of Taliban militants. Now we are heaving a sigh of relief as acts of terror have gone down,” singer Gul Pana told IPS earlier this year. But the Taliban have hit back.

On Feb. 11, Taliban militants hurled two grenades at Shama Cinema in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the north of Pakistan, killing 15 people. The attack came soon after five people were killed at the Picture House cinema hall in another terror attack on Feb. 2.

“Such incidents are very depressing for people who seek a few moments of leisure after a hard day’s work,” Wali said. “We have no internet, TV or other entertainment facilities at home, so we would go to cinema halls for some happiness.”

Opposition to movies, music and dance has always been a part of the Taliban agenda. They killed Wazir Khan Afridi, a veteran singer who recorded 50 albums, on Feb. 26. Afridi had been kidnapped three times before, but was freed on those occasions on condition he quit singing.

“The Taliban have set fire to over 500 CD and music shops in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to frighten people and force them to wind up businesses that are against their brand of Islam,” Ghulam Nabi, who seeks to promote culture in the region, told IPS.

The Taliban have many bases in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in the north bordering Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. They have been targeting music shops and musicians, and believe that music is un-Islamic.

In January 2009, militants had slit the throat of dancer Shabana Begum in Swat, one of the districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and hung her body from an electricity pole. The incident forced other artistes to stay at home or leave the city. Thousands of dancers and musicians fled Swat from 2007 to 2009 when the area was under Taliban rule.

Peshawar used to have 21 cinema houses, each with a capacity of around 200, before the advent of militancy. The city is now left with just 11 movie theatres. Cinema halls are also being closed down in neighbouring Mardan district.

Jehangir Jani, 54, a well-known Pashto film actor, is perturbed. “It is highly condemnable that the Taliban are depriving people of entertainment. I am sure the insurgents will not be able to shut down cinema houses for very long as people cannot live without movies,” he told IPS.

Jani, who is a household name in Pashtun areas, has had to go to Afghanistan many times to film. “In Afghanistan, films are being produced for CDs. Pashtuns have traditionally been film buffs.”

Films in the Pashto language, widely spoken in Afghanistan, are popular in some Pakistani areas as well. “They are watched by people from FATA as well as Afghanistan,” said cine-goer Zahirzada Khan.

Cinema houses are a cheap source of entertainment, he said. “The closure of cinema halls after back-to-back bombings is very upsetting.”

Kashif Shah, manager of a Peshawar cinema hall, said hall owners received letters earlier this year asking them to stop the “shameful trade” of screening movies. “The Taliban warned that they would make an example of us,” Shah said. His hall is now shut.

Shah said the Taliban’s campaign would end up isolating them. “Even their well-wishers have turned against them.”

But the terror threat persists. Police say they don’t have enough personnel to guard cinema halls, and have directed cinema theatres to make their own security arrangements.

“We have told movie hall owners to install cameras and metal detectors at the gates,” senior superintendent of police Najibullah Khan told IPS. “We don’t have enough personnel, but we are ready to train private security guards to prevent such incidents.”

The police have arrested 15-year-old Hasan Khan, who was paid 80 dollars by the Taliban to hurl grenades at the Shama Cinema.

For the time being, Peshawar is going without films.

Jehanzeb Ali, a 35-year-old mechanic from Mardan, told IPS that he used to watch a film every Sunday. “We used to visit Peshawar, watch films and eat out. Now I haven’t seen a movie for a month.”

The cultural challenge to the Taliban had made tentative but isolated advances in recent years. “In the last few years, I have sung more than a dozen songs against the Taliban,” award-wining singer Khyal Muhammad told IPS in 2011. “I got threatening messages on the mobile phone,” he said. “But I will continue to sing because it gives me strength.”

For some time after 2010 it did appear that music and cinema were on a winning track – despite repeated attacks on musicians and music stores. Cinema houses that were closed down began to reopen.

But all along, those in the business have struggled to keep music playing and the show going. “The endless series of bomb attacks on CD and music shops has become the order of the day, but we are undeterred,” Sher Dil Khan, president of the CD and Music Shops Association in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the north of Pakistan, told IPS in 2011. “We will continue to produce new dramas and songs.”

The big encouragement came with the elections in 2013 when cricketer turned politician Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaaf party won the election in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. After the resumption of open sales of music, and the occasional theatre performance, music returned in full swing – in many if not all areas. Now, silence has advanced again.