Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda is currently working on a new film on Patrice Lumumba and returns to basic questions: who was Patrice Lumumba whose influence spread across the borders of Congo? Why have the United States, Belgium and other western countries made him a mortal enemy? Why did he become a quasi-living legend in the course of his short life and brief career? The lecture is set up as a ‘production room’: a conversation between a filmmaker preparing a film production on Lumumba and the public which could play the role of board of producers. Antwerpen, Extra City, 23 october, 2009.

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The following is an English translation by Craig Keller of an interview by Jean-Marc Lalanne with Jean-Luc Godard, dated May 18th 2010, in the French cultural weekly Les Inrockuptibles. The original French text can be accessed at the Inrocks site.

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The filmmaker received us at his home in Switzerland for a provocative, and intimate, interview. Welcome to Rolle.

Rolle's not exactly the center of the world. Just a small, slightly dreary town on Lake Geneva, 40 kilometers from the city of Geneva. But it's also an Eden for multimillionaires seeking a tax-haven. For the nice taxi driver who takes us to the gare de Genève, this geography of celebrities has kept few secrets: "You see the house on the shore at the bottom of the hill — that's Michael Schumacher's. And there's where Peter Ustinov lived. Phil Collins is right over there..."

And what about Jean-Luc Godard? "Once, a Japanese guy got into my car," the driver continues, "and asked me if I knew where monsieur Godard lived. I told him yes, and I took him there, at which point he said: 'Wait just one minute,' — he took three photos, got back into the cab, and asked me to take him back to the gate. He's known all the way to Japan, monsieur Godard!" Whether or not he's the most mythic ("all the way to Japan") resident of the Vaud, monsieur Godard doesn't live in Rolle for the same reason as his neighboring celebs.

A resident of France, that's where he pays his taxes. He lives in Switzerland because he was born here; because he can't do without "certain landscapes", he'll tell us in an interview which, as always with this man, is greatly panoramic. For four hours, in his slightly messy, very functional office, right next to his work area with its half-dozen flat-screens and its shelves filled with countless VHS tapes and DVDs from which he pulls his citations, we spoke about history, politics, Greece, intellectual property, and, of course, cinema — but also about more intimate things: such as his health, and his relationship to death.
—J.-M. L

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"When one makes a film, it is for people who are used to going to see films and who understand them." (Souleymane Cissé)

Cannes 2009, Souleymane Cissé ist zurück: "Mit einem gewissen feministischen Blick situiert sich 'Min Ye' inmitten der Bourgeoisie Malis und den wohlhabenden Vierteln von Bamako. Wir sind weit weg vom zurückgebliebenen oder elenden Afrika, auch weit weg von all den Filmen (manchmal auch sehr schönen, das ist nicht der Punkt), die in altertümlichen Kostümen im und vom Dorf handeln. Oder um es deutlicher zu sagen: wir sind weit weg von der traurig berühmten Rede Sarkozy's in Dakar 2007", schreibt Serge Kaganski für den Blog des Popkultur Magazin Les Inrockuptibles. "Min Ye – Dis-moi" läuft ausser Konkurrenz.

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»Teshome Gabriel, who had a very long association with UCLA, passed away late on the evening of Monday, 14 June 2010, as he was being driven to Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Panorama City by his wife, Maaza Woldemusie. Teshome earned his doctorate in film studies at UCLA and went on to become a faculty member at the same university. The brief official announcement of his death issued by UCLA’s International Institute describes him as having “written extensively on memory and the cinema, theories of Third Cinema, on the aesthetics of nomadic thought in cinema and on weaving and the digital in developing countries.” Intriguing as is this description, to which I shall return shortly, it does not gesture at his unique – and, sad to say, largely unrecognized by the faculty and administration — place in the intellectual life of UCLA and the part that he played in mentoring untold number of students.«
by Vinay Lal

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»Im Berliner Zeughaus-Kino läuft noch bis Ende Juni die Filmreihe Spuren eines Dritten Kinos, eine der spannendsten Reihen, die in der letzten Zeit programmiert worden sind. In fünf Schwerpunkten geht es um das "politische Weltkino" (um einen Begriff von Nikolaus Perneczky aufzugreifen) unserer Zeit. Die Schwerpunkte sind: das Kino der Philippinen, Produktionen aus China, das maghrebinisch-französische Migranten-Kino, Brasilien und die nigerianische Videoproduktion, die sehr schnell den Spitznamen "Nollywood" weg hatte. Der Titel der Reihe wählt gezielt den Bezug auf das "Dritte Kino", also jenes in der Regel marxistisch inspirierte Befreiungskino der sechziger Jahre in Ländern der (noch) nicht zum liberal-demokratisch ausformulierten Kapitalismus entwickelten Welt.« Ein e-mail Interview mit den vier Kuratorinnen und Kuratoren Cecilia Valenti, Nikolaus Perneczky, Fabian Tietke und Lukas Foerster von EKKEHARD KNÖRER

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