Skip to content
1981
1: Aesthetics of the Future: The Cinema of Jean-Pierre Bekolo
  • ISSN: 1754-9221
  • E-ISSN: 1754-923X

Abstract

Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s ‘mockumentary’ film (2013) exposes the dangers of a single story and absolute political rule by presidents-for-life. He not only mimics but also mocks the ‘visible evidence’ thesis of the documentary film genre and blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction. Bekolo’s film opts for multiple voices to entice political dissent and believes in the power of art to imagine liveable African futures.

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • The University of Oklahoma Senior Faculty Summer Grant
  • Sabbatical leave in Fall 2024
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/jac_00107_1
2025-02-18
2026-04-13

Metrics

Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Achebe, Chinua (1983), The Trouble with Nigeria, Oxford: Heinemann.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Agamben, Giorgio (2005), State of Exception, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Amoussou, Sylvestre (2006), Africa paradis (‘Africa paradise’), Benin and France: Metis Productions and Koffi Productions.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Armillas-Tiseyra, Magalí (2019), The Dictator Novel: Writers and Politics in the Global South, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Bekolo, Jean-Pierre (1996), Le complot d'Aristote (Aristotle’s Plot), France, UK, Zimbabwe and Cameroon: British Film Institute (BFI).
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Bekolo, Jean-Pierre (2005), Les saignantes (‘The bloodettes’), Cameroon: Quartier Mozart Films.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Bekolo, Jean-Pierre (2013), Le président (‘The president’), Cameroon and France: Weltfilm.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Bekolo, Jean-Pierre (2016), ‘Haunted by the future’, in L. Heidenreich-Seleme and S. O’Toole (eds), African Futures, Johannesburg and Bielefeld: Kerber Culture, Goethe Institute South Africa and Kerber Verlag, pp. 11535.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Diabate, Naminata (2020), Naked Agency: Genital Cursing and Biopolitics in Africa, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Diawara, Manthia (1995), Rouch in Reverse, UK, USA and France: Formation Films.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Fanon, Frantz (1991), The Wretched of the Earth (trans. C. Farrington), New York: Grove.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Felter, Claire (2017), ‘Africa’s “Leaders for Life” syndrome’, ForeignAffairs.com, 28 December, https://css.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/gess/cis/center-for-securities-studies/resources/docs/CFR-Africa%E2%80%99s%20Leaders%20for%20Life%20Syndrome.pdf. Accessed 22 November 2024.
  13. Giroux, Henry A. (2015), Dangerous Thinking in the Age of the New Authoritarianism, New York: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Haynes, Jonathan (2006), ‘Political critique in Nigerian video films’, African Affairs, 105:421, pp. 51133.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Heidenreich-Seleme, Lien and O’Toole, Sean (eds) (2016), African Futures: Thinking about the Future in Word and Image, Bielefeld: Kerber Verlag.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Houeland, Camilla and Jacobs, Sean (2016), ‘The “Big Man” syndrome in Africa’, Africa Is a Country, 11 March, https://africasacountry.com/2016/03/the-big-man-syndrome-in-africa. Accessed 22 November 2024.
  17. Kamugisha, Aaron (2019), Beyond Coloniality: Citizenship and Freedom in the Caribbean Intellectual Tradition, Indianapolis, IN: University of Indiana.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Keresztesi, Rita (2019), ‘Hip hop politics: Agitation through film and music in West Africa’, in A. Borah, B. Falola and T. Falola (eds), Creative Incursions: Cultural Representations of Human Rights in Africa and the Black Diaspora, Africa World Series, Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, pp. 21324.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Keresztesi, Rita (2021), Literary Black Power in the Caribbean: Fiction, Music and Film, London and New York: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Leigh, Danny (2015), ‘Timbuktu’s director: Why I dared to show hostage-taking Jihadis in a new light’, The Guardian, 28 May, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/28/timbuktu-movie-jihadist-fighters-abderrahmane-sissako. Accessed 25 November 2024.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Mbembe, Achille (1992a), ‘The banality of power and the aesthetics of vulgarity in the postcolony’, Public Culture, 4:2, pp. 130.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Mbembe, Achille (1992b), ‘Provisional notes on the postcolony’, Africa, 62:1, p. 4.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Mbembe, Achille (2003), ‘Necropolitics’ (trans. L. Meintjes), Public Culture, 15:1, pp. 1140.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Murrey, Amber (2014), ‘Review of Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s Le président’, The Postcolonialist, 25 June, http://postcolonialist.com/arts/review-jean-pierre-bekolos-le-president/. Accessed 22 November 2024.
  25. Osouf, Valérie and Le Roy, Gaëlle (2008), Cameroun: Autopsie d’une Indépendence (‘Cameroon: Autopsy of an independence’), France: Program 33.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Rossman, Sasha (2014), ‘Film reviews: “Jean-Pierre Bekolo, Le President’, African Studies Review, 57:3, pp. 24951.
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Sissako, Abderrahmane (2014), Timbuktu, Mauritania and France: Arte France Cinéma, Canal+, Ciné+, CNC and TV5 Monde.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Smarty (2012), ‘Le Chapeau de chef’ (‘The Chief’s Hat’), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZJOt6T9MG8. Accessed 28 November 2016.
  29. Téno, Jean-Marie (1991), Afrique, je te plumerai (‘Africa, I will pluck you’), Cameroon: Jean-Marie Teno.
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Téno, Jean-Marie (1999), Chef! (‘Chief!’), Cameroon: Les Films du Raphia and UNAFF (United Nations Association Film Festival), http://www.unaff.org/2000/F-Chef.htm. Accessed 7 February 2025.
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Thackway, Melissa (2004), Africa Shoots Back: Alternative Perspectives in Sub-Saharan Francophone African Film, Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Tsimi, Eric (2023), ‘Paul Biya’s ghostly legacy in Cameroon: The absence that shaped a nation’, African Arguments, 12 July, https://africanarguments.org/2023/07/paul-biyas-ghostly-legacy-in-cameroon-the-absence-that-shaped-a-nation/. Accessed 12 July 2023.
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Valsero, Général (2016), Motion de soutien (Motion of Support), Soundcloud, Cameroon: Kaer Musik.
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Wynter, Sylvia (2003), ‘Unsettling the coloniality of being/power//truth/freedom: Towards the human, after man, its overrepresentation: An argument’, CR: The New Centennial Review, 3:3, pp. 257337, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41949874. Accessed 14 July 2023.
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Yameogo, S. Pierre (2003), Moi et mon blanc (‘Me and my white guy’), Burkina Faso and France: Dunia Productions and Les Films de l’Espoir and Thelma Film AG.
    [Google Scholar]
  36. Butler, Judith (2009), ‘Performativity, precarity and sexual politics’, lecture delivered at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, 8 June, http://www.aibr.org/antropologia/04v03/criticos/040301b.pdf. Accessed 4 January 2018.
  37. Mbembe, Achille (2001), On the Postcolony, Stanford, CA: University of California Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Ngũgĩ, wa Thiong’o’ (2014), Globalectics: The Theory and the Politics of Knowing, New York: Columbia University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Valsero, Général (2008), Politikement instable, digital album, Bandcamp, 7 April, https://valsero.bandcamp.com/album/politikement-instable. Accessed 26 December 2024.
  40. Valsero (2009), ‘Lettre au président’ (‘Letter to the President’), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a28WhRWrrx4. Accessed 28 November 2016.
  41. Valsero (2013), ‘Interview: “Dimanche avec vous”’, EQUINOXE TV, 2 October, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Viu5QpOrCWM. Accessed 22 November 2024.
  42. Valsero (2015), ‘Interview: “Plateau”’, Ciné Droit Libre, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMFqGVr_N4U. Accessed 22 November 2024.
/content/journals/10.1386/jac_00107_1
Loading
/content/journals/10.1386/jac_00107_1
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): Africa; African futures; Cameroon; cinema; dictatorship; documentary; hip hop
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test