Feature film
Aristotle's Plot
Jean-Pierre Bekolo · 1996
Synopsis
In a town in southern Africa, a gang of apprentice thugs spends its days at the Cinema Africa in front of American action films; its members have taken the names of their idols, Van Damme, Bruce Lee or Nikita, and their leader calls himself Cinéma. Enter Essomba Tourneur, a committed filmmaker, who wants to win the government's support to drive Hollywood out of the hall and show African films there. Poorly supported and sabotaged by the gang, he confronts it and ends up calling the police for help.
Context
The film is the African contribution to a British Film Institute series for the centenary of cinema; it soon outgrows the commission, to the point of combining a meditation on the difficulties of African cinema, an action film and a parody of the Aristotelian rules of storytelling. Shot in Zimbabwe, in English, it is produced by JBA Productions with Framework International and the BFI. Albee Lesotho plays the filmmaker, Siputla Sebogodi the gang leader, Ken Gampu the policeman. The Rotterdam festival sees in it a satire of the production and distribution of the continent's films.
Who it is for
In English, subtitled, a little over an hour. The tone is ironic and the construction plays with the viewer; some familiarity with the debates in African cinema helps.
Prizes and reception
Selected at Rotterdam and Sundance in 1997, then at Toronto, Fribourg and Montreal. Africultures credits it with the award for best sound at the 1997 Fespaco.
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