iREP 2022 Opens with Thoughts on Unfiltered African Stories

By Vanessa Obioha

Returning to physical gathering for the first time in two years, iREP International Documentary Film Festival opened on a thought-provoking note on how African narratives are filtered. 

In his opening remarks, co-founder of the festival Femi Odugbemi reminded the audience of the need to balance stories as related to the theme of this year’s festival which is “Unfiltered: African Stories. Stories from Africa’. 

 In his view, African stories go through many filters that by the end of the day, their authenticity is diluted. The general opinion is that most of these stories are filtered by international media but Odugbemi offered an insight into other means these stories can be presented to meet the desired narrative.

“When we speak about unfiltered, we talk about African stories. We often talk about how our stories are told by others. We talked about how stories have been taken away. Our stories have been almost corrupted. We talk about the negativity that attains to the stories of Africa, in the international media. But then when you also look at the storytellers of Africa and you look at the stories that they are telling. You find that the people who they get the financing to tell the stories have a filter, whether it’s an NGO, or its international agency, whatever it is, those who pay for our stories, filter our stories.”

He emphasized the need to decolonise stories and screens of Africa.

“We have got to ensure that the stories of Africa, whether told by Africans or non-Africans, have a balance.”

He however clarified that telling the African story does not require one to be in denial. For instance, it won’t be wrong to assume that there is no poor political leadership in most African countries or that there is no war.
Odugbemi’s submission was that a story should not be told from one point of view as this will help in ridding preconceived notions.

His thoughts were echoed by the keynote speaker and Executive Director, Africa No Filter, Moky Makura who began her presentation with a series of questions such as  ‘What comes to mind when Africa is mentioned?’ and what informs one’s perspectives of war-torn African countries like Somalia.

Elaborating further, Makura disclosed that during research to find out the narratives of Africa from the year 2000, it was discovered that African stories were told through five keyframes. They are poverty, conflict, corruption, poor leadership and disease.

“These five frames feature so often in stories about Africa that they have helped to define the narrative about Africa,” she said. 

For clarity, she explained that narratives are  “created when stories with certain themes,  certain frames and certain keywords, are told persistently all the time. And eventually, these frames, these stories, become a central belief. They represent an idea that people start having around whatever these stories are.”

These controlled narratives have given birth to stereotypical beliefs about the continent. One of the examples she gave was the perception that the continent’s political system is unstable. Yet, when they did research into actual political risks from 1997-2007, only seven per cent of all claims originated from Africa.

“Yet,” she said, “when we did research into actual political risk claims as organisations claiming insurance against countries for political risks, they found that in 10 years between 1997 and 2017, only 7% of all claims originated in African countries. And 60% Less than one actually from one country to the other.

Like Odugbemi, Makura called for improved storytelling that celebrates the continent and monitoring of stories.

“We have to adopt more ethical storytelling practices that include checking your privilege, it means putting in the time to build relationships and trust,” she said.

The festival’s opening film ‘President’ by Camilla Nielsson further showed how the narrative of an African story can be used in a positive light without ignoring the realities on ground.

More than 60 films will be screened throughout the four-day festival which will wrap up on Sunday, March 20.