If there’s documented evidence that Ola Balogun and Beninese-Senegalese filmmaker Paulin Vieyra ever met, we can’t immediately find it. We’ll certainly ask Balogun when we get to speak with him.
One link between the two African cinema pioneers is that they both studied at Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC) in France (it’s now called La Fémis, one of the world’s top film schools). Although they were likely about 10 years apart (Vieyra in the 1950s; Balogun in the 1960s).
Another key link between them is that both made films while in Paris, France: Vieyra’s “Afrique sur Seine” (co-directed with Mamadou Sarr, 1955) and Balogun’s feature debut “Alpha” (1972). Each was groundbreaking in its own way, offering a unique lens into the African experience in Europe.
If “Afrique sur Seine” is considered the first Francophone African film shot in France, it can be inferred that “Alpha” may be the first Anglophone African film (made by a Nigerian) in France; although 17 years apart.
The semi-autobiographical “Alpha” delves into the lives of young Black intellectuals and artists in Paris in the late 1960s/early 1970s. It’s often classified as a documentary, but it blends fiction and documentary elements.
“Afrique sur Seine” portrays the experiences of African college students in Paris (but it’s not limited to just students) during the late 1950s. It’s more squarely avant-garde filmmaking.
Both films subvert ethnographic filmmaking conventions, offering African POVs on the West, specifically on France. As such, they challenged colonial-era stereotypes and prejudices.
One is widely available (Vieyra’s “Afrique sur Seine”); the other is not (Balogun’s “Alpha”). We’re told that the only existing copy of the latter exists in a “reddish, but still precious 16mm print” at the Cinémathèque Française in Paris, just waiting to be “saved.”
Both would make an excellent complementary double-feature, providing a historical snapshot of the experiences of Africans from different backgrounds, in the same European city, in the wake of decolonization. Although they weren’t entirely alone (more to come).
Here’s a trailer for “Afrique sur Seine” (none exists for “Alpha”).
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