The heroine of the short film by Ugandan Loukman Ali, among the six co-financed on the continent by the American platform and the UN agency, turns into a ruthless vigilante. Because a soldier killed her baby, she hunts him down and ends up drowning him. His fury would not be out of place in Quentin Tarantino.

"It's the revenge of a young girl, left to herself and yet will break everything," says French producer Pape Boye, who served as a "mentor" to the director of this female western and praises Katera's "jubilant violence".

Loukman Ali, he continues, embodies a new generation of African filmmakers still unknown but who, "bottled by mainstream cinema", "wants to be seen by as many people as possible" and disdain arthouse films.

At 32, the Ugandan confides in a telephone interview to AFP to have grown up watching "films a little silly" but "funny", "like Chuck Norris", before having had his phases "war films", and Hong Kong cinema, French or English.

"I learned everything by watching movies and their making-of on YouTube", without having "ever been on a professional shoot", continues this self-taught. Alone and self-financed, he had already written and produced four low-budget films before "Katera of the Punishment Island".

His latest opus is inspired by a real fact. In southwestern Uganda, until the early twentieth century, pregnant women out of wedlock, accused of dishonoring their families, were abandoned on Punishment Island, an arid island. Unable to swim and thus escape, many died.

Futuristic

"Even though it was a true story, I wanted to make it an entertaining film," he says. Far from the traditional canons of African cinema, these films "tearful, like +Look at the poor child +", to which he has never adhered.

Loukman Ali was finally selected last year, among 2,000 synopses received by Unesco and Netflix, to direct his short film, financed to the tune of 75,000 dollars. "Katera of the Punishment Island" is available since Wednesday on the platform.

Five other young African filmmakers have this privilege, including Kenyan Voline Ogutu, for "Anyango and the ogre": in a futuristic world, women are divided into two categories, single or wives, the latter being exposed to domestic violence.

Kenyan director Valentine Ogutu at a screening in Nairobi on March 29, 2023 © Tony KARUMBA / AFP

"I've always wanted to make horror, science fiction movies," she says. But in Kenya, "if you propose a fantastic film, you are told that +the housewife under 50+ will not understand".

Policymakers are bolder elsewhere. Particularly in South Africa, where several ambitious series have been produced, and in Nigerian Nollywood, from where 2,500 films are released each year, often at low cost.

But the "dozens" of young directors who "challenge the dominant narrative" do come from all over Africa, says Steven Markovtiz, the executive producer of the Netflix/UNESCO project. A phenomenon linked, according to him, to new technologies globalizing information, but above all to a "philosophical change".

"We are in the third or even fourth post-colonial generation. (These filmmakers) are much freer than their parents vis-à-vis the past," says the South African, which makes them "more playful and provocative", as opposed to traditional works "slow" and often dedicated to "serious subjects".

A boon for a continent in full demographic growth, whose middle classes are growing, and which must be entertained.

'Golden Age'

Tendeka Matatu, executive of Netlix-Afrique, believes in a "golden age for African films", in which his employer helps to "grow the directors of tomorrow".

"The Africa of the 1970s is very different from that of the 2020s," he insists. Filmmakers want to tell (...) today's society and viewers want to see stories that reflect (their lives)."

Streaming platforms are central in this sense. Thanks to their means and their diffusion, they compensate for the failing local industries where technicians, studios, equipment are lacking. "22 countries (out of 54, editor's note) have no cinemas," said Ernesto Ottone, Assistant Director-General for Culture at UNESCO.

Within eight years, the size of the African streaming market, currently estimated at 3 million subscribers, will increase six-fold, he said. A modest figure compared to the 1.7 billion Africans because hundreds of millions of them do not have sufficient internet connection or the money to subscribe to a platform.

But "what African cinema lacks above all is the acceptance" by the rest of the industry, laments Ghanaian director Leila Djansi, "mentor" of the short film "Anyango and the ogre".

And to denounce "the bias, discrimination, racism" suffered by African directors abroad, from which some funding comes. In Hollywood, where she works, "because you are African, because of your accent, you are considered incapable," she charged.

To get out of this situation, African cinema needs a film "that is not only a critical hit, but also at the box office" worldwide, which would be a first, says producer Pape Boye. He is optimistic: "Within 24 months", it will happen. "I'm holding the bet."

© 2023 AFP