Documenting Africa on Film

By Faith Harvey

Cameroonian filmmaker and film scholar Florence Ayisi creates documentaries to highlight the complex beauty of Africa, with a particular focus on women.

“I’m in a hurry to document Africa. I don’t have time to revise and review a script for two years,” Ayisi recently told a UC Santa Barbara audience.

Ayisi, who teaches at the University of South Wales in the UK, was sponsored by the Black Studies Department as well as the Film and Media Studies and History departments for her presentation “Realities, Representation, and Reflections.”

Florence Ayisi, a Cameroonian filmmaker, during her presentation “Realities, Representations, and Reflections,” hosted by UC Santa Barbara’s Film and Media Studies, Black Studies, and History departments.

When she was a young African scholar in Europe, Ayisi felt disturbed that she saw few positive depictions of Africa in the media. At the time, African animals were treated with more respect by filmmakers than the living people of African countries, she said. This drove Ayisi to become a filmmaker.

Ayisi showcases African women, calling them the “unsung who sing the songs” such as in her film Zanzibar Soccer Queens, which shows the journey of Muslim women in Africa who break tradition by pursuing soccer, and Women Artists in Cameroon, an insight into the lives of creative female artists in Cameroon.

Ayisi said one of her main cinematic inspirations is Sembène Ousmane, considered the father of African cinema. Sembene began as a writer and director, but when he realized the people he was writing about could not enjoy his work, he switched to film.

“If the communities I am researching cannot access my documentaries, then no justice is done,” Ayisi said.

The filmmaker said she is using her platform to provide a voice and agency for her African subjects, and “decolonize the cinematic gaze” that she found in media then and now. She is creating films today for tomorrow, documenting Africa’s current conditions before they are forgotten, she says.

Please place your mouse over the photos below to read about Ayisi’s films. Click on the photos to move forward.

Women Artists in Cameroon

Women Artists in Cameroon highlights the women artists of Cameroon as they show their skills and routines. This film presents how women use art to express their identities. The women in this film were the first to have art presented in a public exhibition in Cameroon.

Handing Down Time

Calling Cameroon a “miniature Africa,” Ayisi made Handing Down Time to show dynamic and diverse traditions within the nation. Festivals, music, dancing, and more highlight Cameroon's reality.

Marie Madeline: A Female Chief

Marie Madeline: A Female Chief documents the rare occurrence when a woman became chief of Nkol Ngock I, a small Cameroonian village. This documentary shows the societal changes and community opinions in a small village as a new women-led era becomes reality.

Co-Power

Nearly three years after the start of COVID-19, Ayisi has begun a film on what minority communities within the United Kingdom experienced during the pandemic. It discusses racial injustice, caretaker abuse, and creative outlets for people of color, showing how COVID-19 changed communities around the UK.

Zanzibar Soccer Queens

In Zanzibar Soccer Queens Ayisi documents the Women Fighters, a female Muslim soccer club in Cameroon. In the film, women discuss their identity and role within the sport of soccer and how soccer allows them to break down societal barriers. Zanzibar Soccer Queens was screened at over 20 festivals worldwide and sparked change in Cameroon, initiating national respect for female athletes. The women are now considered leaders and have full freedom to play soccer.

The Bronze Men of Cameroon

The Bronze Men of Cameroon is the first film about bronze craftsmen, their struggle to find material. Ayisi says her “curiosity takes her places,” and that drive toward discovery brought her to Foumban, Cameroon, a City of Arts, where she explored the cultural significance of the men’s bronze pieces, and the future of their craft.

Ayisi travels either solo or with a companion, and films with one camera that was given to her by the university. Occasionally she used a drone for filming. She shoots all her documentaries herself, and students in her classes do the editing.

Her films have screened in over 15 film festivals in 12 different countries, including the Cannes film festival, where her co-directed film Sisters in Law, won the Prix des Cinémas Art et Essai in 2005. She has won 27 other awards at festivals and an Academy Award nomination.

Trailers are very important to Ayisi, calling them an art form on their own, since condensing a full film into a one-minute video takes special care and expertise. At her talk, she showed several trailers of past films, including one that will come out later this year.

Faith Harvey is a third-year UCSB student, majoring in Communication studies and minoring in Professional Writing. She is a Web and Social Media intern for the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts.