FILMS FOR AFRICAN NATIVES

Evening Star, Issue 22459, 2 October 1936, Page 11

FILMS FOR AFRICAN NATIVES

PRODUCER'S NEW PROBLEMS Production of motion picture films intended to help educate native Africans in agricultural methods and other matters have revealed diverse attitudes among primitive tribes of East Africa. Mr L. A. Notcutt, field director of the Bantu educational cinema experiments and his small staff, by a process of trial and error r."d careful observation of the results of their early films upon African audiences, have reached a point where their programmes appear to give increasing satisfaction. The experiment began nine months ago in Tanganyika. Tbo African native proved to be a competent actor and a willing collaborator. The general plan has been to produce films which are definitely instructional, but which have a certain amount of human interest. In addition, a number of short farces have been made. One of the first films made dealt with the effects of soil erosion. Mr Notcutt himself has called it a crude production, but, nevertheless, it aroused wide interest, and encouraged him to make a better soil erosion picture, telling the story of soil preservation graphically. The general intention and aim within the bounds of limited financial resources is to present a happy mixture of entertainment and instruction. In the soil erosion picture, this was achieved by making the hero ultimately comfortably off in worldly goods because he followed sound agricultural principles. The element of humour has to be used very carefully. The African audience was found to be much less critical than a European one. The custard pie and whitewash type of humour often succeeds in arousing laughter at the intended points in the films, but this is not always the case. Mr Notcutt has been unable to lay down any general principles in regard to the humour of the African. The African, has bis own particular jokes and tbe point in these is still elusive. TRIBAL POLITICS. While politics do not enter into the making of these films, policy does. It is necessary to revise some of the plots for different tribes. As the filtps are educational also, it is absolutely necessary to point the moral, but this has to be done carefully, both to meet the requirements of the subject and the local politics of various tribes. It was found that while some audiences missed tbe point in a well-planned conclusion, others did appreciate its neatness, particularly if it was some thing familiar to them in their daily life. The native story-teller, howevei generally makes no attempt to roum off his narrative in a workmanlike way and merely rambles on, so that lev. natives arc prepared for a story that attempts to catch up loose ends and make a fomt.

Other handicaps have been the absence of African literature, the very low standard of literacy, and the resulting absence of the critical faculty which a sophisticated audience applies to the art of the story-teller. The result is that Mr Notcutt has had to work on in the hope of discoveeing the technique which is most suitable. Economy has required very short films, particularly “ talkies,” and it ha* been necessary to stick to the diso sound method of recording because eight minutes appears to bo about the average length of time that- African actors can remember their lines. Curious differences have emerged between audiences in Tanganyika, where the films were first made, and those in Kenya, where they were shown later. The films made in one territory were not successful when shown in another. The rural natives in Kenya were exceedingly practical in their interest, and were amazingly keen on anything in the nature of sold education. In this there was a striking difference between them and the native* of Tanganyika,