Recently The New York Times picked up on one of Sweden’s latest "race controversies": The Swedish national broadcaster announced it would broadcast an edited version of a 1969 Pippi Longstocking TV-series. The edited version excludes a scene where Pippi plays Chinese by slanting her eyes and Pippi’s mainly absent dad is just a king instead of a ‘negro-king’. Despite Pippi’s creator, Astrid Lindgren, confessing in a 1970 interview that she should have called Ephraim Longstocking (who, unable to carve out an existence for himself in Sweden, ventured to the Pacific’s, where he immediately became the ruler of a silly-named island populated by brown people) something else, the intervention caused a backlash among Swedes. Many felt their human rights had been trampled on. The word ‘censorship’ was mentioned, and many swore they would never watch the Pippi-series again. Others vowed to only show their children the original version of the series. A couple of years ago, the move of offensive Tintin-comic books from the youth and children’s section in a public library caused similar reactions and evoked references to book burnings. The people with the strongest reactions to both events are neither neo-Nazis nor members of obscure racist movements. They are ordinary white folks who ignore the link between dehumanization and killing in cold blood. It is ordinary people then who when their right to define racism is contested, start foaming at the mouth. The closer to home – literally and metaphorically - the racism that is being addressed occurs, the more elaborate the strategies for deflection and derailment. Dismissing the concept of race as a construct (which is true but irrelevant) and claiming colour blindness is one. Referring to good intentions (claiming that engaging in blackface every November is not a substitute for cross-burning) is another. Yet others are bringing up reverse racism (as if there were such a thing) and telling people to focus on ‘real racism’ (whatever that is). For example, in defence of white South African artist Brett Bailey’s exhibition Exhibit B, in which black bodies are used to put the spotlight on the exploitation of black bodies, mainly white people have accused mainly black objectors to the oeuvre of mob hysteria. In recent times, a recurring theme has been good white people telling good black people what is racism and what is not. Good white people rarely said ‘You’re right, let’s change that’ or ‘Let’s stop that’; instead they told black people calling out racism to sit down. If there’s anything these last years have taught us, it is that smoking weed in public like the Dutch or being sexually super-liberated as the rumour has it that the Swedes are, doesn’t automatically make you cool, and it certainly doesn’t mean that we can trust your morals.

Teddy Goitom is a Swedish-Ethiopian/Eritrean content producer and the founder of Stocktown (1998), “a cultural movement celebrating creativity and freedom of souls”, which includes a curated video magazine founded in 2011 as well as the Afripedia-series, which AIAC has covered here. Though his base is in Stockholm, this curious and hard-working creative is constantly shifting between times and places, producing documentaries and creative content online and elsewhere, together with an ever-growing network of creatives. Stocktown has created two TV-series, Stocktown - A Global Underground Journey and Stocktown Africa, and a feature length documentary will be produced in 2015. What is your first film memory? I was around seven years old when I found a VHS-tape with The good the bad and the ugly by Sergio Leone. That summer I had the film on repeat and watched it several times a day. I was totally obsessed by it - the music, every scene - and I’d memorize every line and imitate every characters Though my mom used to force me to play outside, I’d always found a way to come back in and watch the film again, and discover something new in it every time. Why did you decide to become a filmmaker? I never decided to become a filmmaker and never went to film school. I’m actually still in the process of finding out if that’s what I am. I see myself more as a storyteller. Ever since I started the Stocktown movement in 1998, I have been interested in building new platforms and finding new ways to broadcast untold and inspiring stories. Whether I produce music events, art exhibitions, documentaries or using new technology to stream stories to a broader audience doesn’t really matter. What matters is story. Which film do you wish you had made and why? Enter The Dragon with Bruce Lee, Jim Kelly and John Saxon. As a young kid, to see a black martial arts hero fighting on the same side as Bruce Lee was groundbreaking. Though we never really got to know Williams, who was played by Jim Kelly and who gets killed way too early, he was the reason I became interested in and started to explore the blaxplotation scene. In my remake, Williams’s story would get much more attention and obviously be much more interesting. Name one of the films on your top-5 list and the reason why it is there. Beat Street (1984) opened my eyes to the hiphop scene, which I immediately identified with and which inspired me. It was completely different to films like Saturday Night Fever, like a mix between a musical and a realistic portrayal – almost documentary like - of an underground culture scene that was fresh, dynamic  and transcending geographical and other borders. As I connected to it, I realised the enormous power of film. Ask yourself any question you think I should have asked and answer it. "What motivated you to make your last documentary series Afripedia?" First and foremost: curiosity first and foremost, but also the realisation that there are so many contexts, perspectives and dimensions out there that no one has ever heard about. We put the spotlight on them and make sure that they become known to the world. Our audience consists of people across the world, who are interested in finding out about and connect to creativity regardless of where and how it appears.

Legendary documentarian Jihan El-Tahri started her career as a journalist, working as a news agency correspondent and TV researcher covering Middle East politics before starting to direct and produce documentaries for French TV, the BBC, PBS and other international broadcasters. She has since directed more than a dozen films including the Emmy nominated The House of Saud, The Price of Aid, which won the European Media prize in 2004 and Cuba: An African Odyssey. Her most recent feature documentary Behind the Rainbow, which examines the transitional process in South Africa, has won various prizes since its release in 2009. She is currently finalizing a three-hour documentary provisionally titled Egypt’s Modern Pharaohs. As if this wasn’t enough, El-Tahri has also written two books, The 9 Lives of Yasser Arafat and Israel and the Arabs: the 50 Years War and is engaged in various associations and institutions working with African cinema. What is your first film memory? I actually remember watching Shadi Abdel Salam’s The Mummy at a hotel screening in London when my family moved there. I was around 5 and I knew I was Egyptian and the mummy terrified me but got me very curious. I remember the lighting of the film until today. It made these ancient stories so real and timeless. Why did you decide to become a filmmaker? I started off as a journalist because I truly believed that journalism is the first draft of history and if done properly it could actually change the world. Young and idealistic I thought I could change the world single handedly … Alas, the Gulf war of 1990 was a rough wakeup call. It is then that I realized that I needed to reassess many things, including my own identity and what stories were important for me to engage in. I finally realized that I could only tell one story at a time if I wanted to do it properly. Documentary was the obvious choice. I made numerous “observational” films but that still was not satisfying. Then one day I was hired to work with a company in the UK and they gave me their last film series to watch: Death of Yugoslavia. A 7-hour series that I stayed up all night watching. There and then I decided that that was the kind of documentary filmmaking I wanted to pursue. Which film do you wish you had made and why? Answer 1 In 1992 I wrote an extensive treatment for a film based on a topic I had been researching for a full year. The film was titled Allah’s Holy Warriors. It was about the brand new phenomenon of Islamic warriors returning from Afghanistan under the leadership of a then unknown commander called Osama Bin Laden. They had offices at Finsbry Park in London and I had spent weeks convincing them to allow me to film. They finally gave me the OK, I did go film a short sequence while they where in Sudan. They were due to leave and return to Afghanistan and I obtained the OK to actually film the move and spend time filming in their camps. I tried selling this idea to any TV channel but nobody was interested in an unknown Islamic fighter and his ragtag troops. Without the backing of a channel it felt too complicated and decided to wait and do this story later …. Mistake!! Why I think I should have done this film? It’s is not because of the high profile the story would have had later, My regret is mainly because it was a time when this totally inaccessible and incomprehensible group were willing to talk and explain their grievances, who they are and why their fervent beliefs are unshakable. I always feel that maybe if I had done that story, it would have allowed me - let alone others - to understand that whole Islamic “terrorism” phenomenon that has altered the face of my continent and the world actually. Answer 2: I hesitate between Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation - for the way she managed to isolate a very specific and unusual sentiment of alienation as well as using the city as her main character - and Alex Gibney’s documentary Taxi to the Dark Side.  I am in total awe of how he managed to  - coherently and uninterruptedly - turn the murder investigation of a simple unknown taxi driver in Afghanistan into a worldwide interrogation of a political system.  The film is thorough, informative and scary. It is perfect proof that a film can uncover and contest a superpower efficiently and dramatically. Name one of the films on your top-5 list and the reason why it is there. Newton Aduaka’s film Rage The film tackles multiple sensitive and personally touching issues with a force and a sensitivity that I find mind blowing. It is about being of mixed race, the case of my children and many of my friends. This space of not knowing where you belong… It is about negotiating this space as an outsider. Being a bit of a nomad I so understood and identified with the main characters’ clumsy attempts to fit in and his rage when realizing that he never will. Tackling this film through music and youth urban culture made the film universal, informative as well as extremely sensitive and compassionate. Ask yourself any question you think I should have asked and answer it. I guess I will add the question that I always ask myself: Is it worth it? Meaning is making a film with all the pain, the heartache and the minimal returns it entails worth it? When I am frustrated about spending 3 to 4 years of my life chiselling away at what seems to be a mountain, my answer is usually: No! But once the film survives the first year and continues to make sense, I believe that there is nothing more precious than telling a story that can talk to others and allows your voice as a person to exist. Now old and much less idealistic, I still believe that this single drop in the ocean does make a difference, if only in a single other person’s life. Image Credit: Antoine Tempé

Born in Bonn in 1985, Philippa Ndisi-Herrmann is a Kenyan and German photographer and filmmaker. She is intrigued by the invisible boundary between individual and collective identities, and fascinated by the influence of ancestral memory, living space and culture on our understanding of ourselves. She is drawn to Lamu, an Island in the Indian Ocean, where The Donkey that Carried the Cloud on its Back an ongoingfeature-length documentary project, originates. She lives in Nairobi, Kenya where she writes, cooks, paints, shoots, makes jokes, reads Rumi, and falls in love.  Here's a teaser for "The Donkey that Carried the Cloud on its Back" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwE2rxooUp0 What is your first film memory? It was The Bear by Jean-Jacques Annaud. I was maybe five. My mum had returned from the UK bearing gifts and brought me back the video. I watched it alone, captivated. The forest was entrancing and the silent bears mystifying. I cried. I watched it a few times, not many, but that was the first time I was moved by a film - and perhaps the first time I understood a feeling, in this case, the feeling of separation, of loss and aloneness through the film medium. Why did you decide to become a filmmaker? In my late teens, I realised that one of my purposes in this life was to plug myself into our greater understanding of human kind, by contributing and conveying sentiments, feelings and moments. I knew I was an artist - but I felt the media that I knew, words and drawings, did not suffice; film felt like a multi-sensory medium to convey a feeling. Film was tangible; you could hear, you could see, you could feel - it was real, the human story could be told and understood. Film to me is one of the strongest and most powerful tools to create compassion. If only for a brief period, you can live another's life - and this experience can deepen and change your perspective and understanding of life. More compassion is what the world needs, and film is a way of positively contributing to the greater human experience. Which film do you wish you had made? Many of Bergman's, because he is genius and perhaps Walter Salles’s Central Station (1998) or Half-Nelson by Ryan Fleck. However I will say I wish I made Biutiful because it is poetry and spiritualism. To me, the film explores the memory other’s have left behind and the memories we leave behind. Is it the love we have for others or is it our memory and moments with them that make up our “souvenir” of them? I also liked the clash of antiquity and the real world. A wonderful film. After I saw it, I used to fall asleep to that film for many a night. It made me even more inspired to make films! Name one of the films on your top-5 list and the reason why it is there. I will say Out of the Furnace. It is exquisitely directed - we always know the character's motivation and the director Scott Cooper explores the complexities of conflict so well. Paradise Love ( as well. I admire the film because of how Director Siedl seems to have observed the most minute details and presented them in such a way that is so strong and clear. The place where the film takes place is very familiar to me, it is a seaside resort town that I have been to many times as a child and adult. The dynamics of relationships between young local guys and middle-aged European women has been a source of fascination for me so I appreciate how he explored this. What I liked about the film is how Siedl explores the everchanging power play between the two characters and of course the way in which “power” and lack of power affects self-esteem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFqk42beg7o I also like how Paradise Love touches on imperialism and addresses hangover of sex and colonialism. Oh and I love the way Siedl designs his shots. Most of his scenes are just one shot, sometimes only one take. Often locked off. Many of his shots are full of visual contrasts and each shot is like a photographic portrait. The dialogue is crazy too, very real but crazy. Ask yourself any question you think I should have asked and answer it. “Which are your favourite film scene(s)?” I will tell you two, off the top of my head, but from my heart; one from the perspective of a filmmaker and the other from the perspective of a romantic, starting with the latter: When Édith Piaf and Marcel go on their first date in a fancy restaurant in Olivier Dahan’s La Vie en Rose and fall in love at that table. I love the dialogue and editing; I love the way the filmmaker hold certain shots and the way the scene is told through Edith recounting the story to her best friend.  Dahan later references this scene toward the end of the film when Edith in her old age, is interviewed by a young woman. Sublime and beautiful; touching and romantic! From a filmmaker’s point of view I pick the prologue to Biutiful; the scene in the white forest with Uxbal and the young man - everything in it is perfect and moving; the owl's feathers blowing in the wind, the dialogue, the images, the intimacy and spiritual relevance. * The ‘5 Questions for a Filmmaker …’ series is archived here.

In 1995 filmmaker and griot Dani Kouyaté won the Golden Stallion – The award for Best First Film at the pan-African film festival FESPACO – for his first feature Keïta! The Heritage of the Griot. He has since made three more feature films in addition to directing for TV and the stage as well as several documentaries, including one about Burkinabé historian, writer and politician Joseph Ki-Zerbo. Kouyaté – son of internationally renowned actor Sotigui Kouyaté (of Little Senegal, Dirty Pretty Things and London River-fame) - grew up and studied film in Burkina Faso and spent several years in Paris where he studied anthropology and film. Today the director, whose latest feature Suns is currently traveling the world, lives in Sweden with his family.

What is your first film memory? The Charlie Chaplin short films I saw as a kid in the 1970s. There was a film club at the National Cinema Directorate of the Upper Volta (before the country’s name changed to Burkina Faso), where they hosted film screenings for youth every Thursday morning.  That’s where I discovered silent film. Later in life, when I was in film school, I got to see most of his feature films. I’m a great fan of his work and today I have all of his films. Chaplin managed to make the whole world laugh and cry, without advanced technique or even dialogue. He reached everyone, and should be an inspiration to today’s filmmakers who are preoccupied with things like lack of resources or what language to shoot our films in. Why did you decide to become a filmmaker? There was never a doubt in my mind about what to become. Both my grandfather and my father were griots, who told our people’s history and stories for children. I remember my father, Sotigui Kouyaté practising his calling it from the scene of an amphitheatre. I realised that film could serve the same purpose when it came to keeping our memories alive. I was fortunate to spend my entire childhood on film sets across Burkina with my father. I followed him everywhere and observed him when he was working. He was passionately involved in every aspect of the shoots - casting, wardrobe, direction and even makeup sometimes. He passed on his love for cinema to me. When I left high school, the University of Ouagadougou had just started a film school so I knew exactly what to study. Which film do you wish you had made and why?

Steven Spielberg’s first film, The Duel, from 1971. Without a big budget or artifices and tricks – just one truck and a car really - he has me spellbound from beginning to end. The film is a testimony to Spielberg’s great storytelling-talent.

Name one of the films on your top-5 list and the reason why it is there.

Modern Times by Charlie Chaplin. Eighty years after its release, it’s more relevant than ever. Watching it today when we are witnessing the signs of the capitalist system falling part, you realise what a visionary he was back then.

Ask yourself any question you think I should have asked and answer it. Question: If you hadn’t been a filmmaker, what would you have done instead? I would have been a chef. I love cooking. At home I spend half my time in the kitchen. I love trying out new recipes and inventing new ones. Sometimes I succeed, at other times my kids refuse to eat what I’ve cooked. I don’t mind though - that’s what pasta is for. Great chefs, like great filmmakers, are in love with the creative process. Both as a director on set and as a chef in the kitchen, there’s sometimes a tendency to forget about the people who are going to consume what is being created. I believe that what makes a film brilliant is as complex and subtle as that, which makes a dish delicious. Suns (co-directed with Olivier Delahaye) has its London-premiere at the Royal African Society’s Annual Film Festival in London this Sunday, November 2. Interview translated from French by Katarina Hedrén. Photo credit: Jože Rehberger Ogrin. *The ‘5 Questions for a Filmmaker …’ series is archived here.

Moussa Sene Absa is a Senegalese filmmaker, artist and songwriter. What is your first film memory? It happened during the school holidays the year I turned ten in 1968. As a reward for my good grades my uncle took me to the cinema to watch The Lion from Saint Marc. At one point when a lion looks straight into the camera I was terrified and tried to run away, but my uncle grabbed me and said “It’s just a film.” The scene haunted me for days. Why did you decide to become a filmmaker? I fell in love with movies as a teenager, but before that, when I was ten, I used to make Chinese shadow films at our house in Tableau Ferraille. Kids would pay me to tell them stories, which I had read in comic books or seen on film, like 'Blek' and 'Zembla.' Story telling is my way to make the world a better place, to dream and allow others to do the same. I’m a Griot and a storyteller, who grew up in a family of musicians and singers. I started in theatre before turning to film. I was fascinated by both art forms and I’ve always considered the stage to be the best storytelling platform. Film is the perfect tool to tap into other realities in order to make sense of the world, and to portray people and their stories. I became a filmmaker to tell both great and decadent stories, and to make people cry and laugh out of fear and joy. Which film do you wish you had made? There are many films that made a huge impression on me and that I wish I had made, like Once upon a time in America, Rome, open City, Breathless, Hyenas, The little girl who sold the sun and In the mood for love. But if I had indeed made them they would be different as they would have reflected my personality and culture in terms of music, costumes, casting etc. Name one of the films on your top-5 list and the reason why it is there. In its simplicity and the way the story is told, The little girl who sold the sun is the most accomplished film, which talks about life and the future. It’s such a pure and humanist story, and without ever becoming sentimental, it portrays the protagonist – a young girl – as a hero. Ask yourself any question you think I should have asked and answer it. 'Where is African cinema heading, and what are you working on now?' Africans have made films for half a century, and the continent has produced many great filmmakers, who made films rooted in Africa while also reflecting a universal vision, However, during the last couple years, our film language has become increasingly uniform, and with a structure that originates from the West: “Introduction and development followed by conclusion”. Africans usually begin with the end, saying, “He is dead” and then trace the life of the dead person and the people concerned. This storytelling structure is hardly applied on our films. I’m hoping that our filmmakers embark on a search for our identity and our cultures. You could easily think that some Africans films were made by British, Germans or Americans, with a gaze that is truly problematic. At the moment I’m working on a project called Sangomaar, which explores how we adapt to our turbulent world. According to Senegalese tradition, Sangomaar is where the sea meets the river and where the Gods gather to discuss mankind and suggest solutions to our problems, as well as scolding or rewarding us. It’s the place where our destinies are formed. 'Sangomaar' is the second film in a trilogy about black people that starts with my film 'Yoolé' (The Sacrifice). I’m applying the principles of Kurukan Fuga (the ancient Malian constitution) to judge whether we as human beings are moving forward or backwards. I ask questions about where we come from, how we are living our lives, and alternative ways of living and thinking. I also explore the painful moments of our rich and poor continent. Africa is indeed a place of contrast and paradoxes. * The ‘5 Questions for a Filmmaker …’ series is archived here.

Taghreed Elsanhouri directed the first Sudanese film to be screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, "All about Darfur," in 2005. That same year the film also won the Chairperson’s Prize at the Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIFF). Her other credits include 'Sudanna al Habib' (2012) and 'Mother Unknown' (2009). This interview is the second in a series. Archived here. What is your first film memory? My first film memory is the first film I saw on the big screen. It was an Arabic film called Laylat Alqabt Ala Fatima (The Night Fatima was Arrested), based on a novella by Egyptian journalist and writer, Sakina Fu’ad. She was part of a group of women who wrote about the role of women in a changing society. Why did you decide to become a filmmaker? At one point in my life, when I was still working in broadcasting, I suffered from a stint of writer’s block, which made me feel like The Little Mermaid. I felt as if I had lost my voice--that it had been sold or stolen somewhere along the way. Making films became my way to recover my voice. Which already made film do you wish you had made? I recently saw British/Ghanaian filmmaker and co-founder of the Black Audio Film Collective John Akomfrah’s exhibition 'Hauntologies' in London and I’m grateful to him for this work, in particular for giving life, through visualization, to a black man and woman who appear in a 16^th century painting. Although I do not feel comfortable wishing I had made already made works, I aspire to make films that recover lost voices as perfectly and beautifully as Akomfrah. Name one of the films on your top-5 list and the reason why it is there. Babette’s Feast by Danish director Gabriel Axel, because it deals with the human impulse to give back, and the poetry of memory. Ask yourself any question you think I should have asked and answer it. What was your motivation for making your latest film Our Beloved Sudan? I wanted the footprints of my country to appear in the history, and to tell a story about the partition of my country from a Sudanese perspective. * The ‘5 Questions for a Filmmaker …’ series is archived here.