To accompany the film programme, it was only natural to commission essays on the interactions of music and film, or music on film: enter Audiovisual Crossroads. What you will discover here is an eclectic blend of subject matters exploring both artistic genres from different angles, representative of – but not limited to – how we interact with music and/or film.
The essays in this collection, ‘Audio-Visual Crossroads’, proceed from a self-conscious attention to the status of the relationship between motion picture and music. The contributions are varied in interest and focus, they reveal different stylistic temperaments and orientations toward music and film, and their co-appearance in the volume is a bold and honest testimony to the importance of the topic.
In 1997, I wept alongside the world as Jack shivered in the icy ocean and Rose clung onto life and her makeshift raft. Like everyone else (be honest!), I had belted ‘My Heart Will Go On’ into hairbrushes and maths sets and rulers.
Following the seamless integration of mainstream music into Nollywood films, it can be argued that the industry is making more imaginative use of music, especially in establishing meaningful connections beyond Nollywood.
While society typically favours ‘moral’ or ‘lesson’ movies, some scholars have taken exception to how these lessons or morals are portrayed in Nollywood films.
In Africa, music played a similar role in confronting injustice, even to the detriment of the artists involved. Over the years, many African artists faced censorship and were forced into exile as they embraced their roles (and responsibilities) as flag bearers, proclaiming messages of truth and emancipation through their songs, performances and music videos.
The idea is not to obtain an exact representation or reproduction of reality, but rather to shape the emerging reality with innovation and creative ingenuity. Indeed, the expanding semantic potential of sound-image interactions in ethnographic documentaries has prompted a rethinking of the principles of representation.
NATION FORGOTTEN is a documentary film on the plight of Nigerian pensioners. More than nine pensioners with stirring testimonies lament the pension fraud in Nigeria, non-payment of their gratuities, pension allowances and the troubles of living with barely nothing in a country where getting by is difficult for even the rich.
Extended Play is a Screen Out Loud event featuring more than one film and lasting beyond one day. This first edition will feature films celebrating music and musicians, and music histories from around the world.
Today, the politican seems to have disappeared from the official history of Niger, but the man of letters continues to survive beyond the borders by the writings he left. This man was my father. By following in his footsteps, twenty-three years after his death, I rediscover little by little with his history, the one of my country.
