The Bloodettes, Naked Reality | Jean-Pierre Bekolo

good evening welcome to the Billy Wilder theater home of the public programs for the UCLA film and television archive my name is Paul Malcolm I'm the senior public programmer for the archive before we begin as a land grant institution the UCLA film and television archive would like to acknowledge our presence on the traditional ancestral and unseated territories of the Gabrielino and Tong of peoples we are humbled to do work in this community we want to thank all the individuals and organizations that have helped to make tonight's screening possible all of the archives screening in the Wilder are free thanks to a gift from an anonymous donor and we are grateful to them for their support and a big thank you to Our Community Partners for tonight's screening at the UCLA African study center the UCLA School of theater film and television and the Via Alber albertine thank you all for coming out to our survey of films by cameroonian writer director Jean Pierre becko an intoxicating squirrel an intoxicating swirl of magic and Technology folklore and genre sensuality and politics energizes all of Jean Pierre's work including his debut feature quatier Mozart the provocative comedy Aristotle's plot the first African science fiction film The blets and the spellbinding afrofuturist naked reality we are thrilled to be presenting each of these rarely Screen Works over the next two nights and we are especially honored to do it with Jean Pierre bolo here in person Jean Pierre is right there let's have a round of applause for Jean Pierre so tonight's program will begin with the bloodette to be followed immediately by a Q&A with Jean Pierre moderated by UCLA associate professor shelene green then after a 10minute intermission we will present naked reality we are screening the blets on a 35 millimeter print from Arsenal Berlin in Germany we want to thank them for their uh allowing us to screen that making that print available to us the print however is unsubtitled so we are going to be projecting English subtitles live during the screening I'm going to be running those live subtitles back in the booth so I'm going to apologize in advance for any mistakes that I make along the way I practiced a lot this week I'm going to do the best I can so I I beg your forgiveness thank you okay the print looks gorgeous by the way I mean the color is just amazing so you're in for AET treat so a Visionary filmmaker and pioneering theorist who is deeply engaged with the social political and cultural issues facing Africa and indeed all of us living in a global context Jean Pierre has won awards at Major festivals and taught and lectured at major universities around the world most recently he was named the 2024 McMillan Stewart fellow at Harvard please help me welcome to the stage Jean Pierre beo good evening um thank you very much uh for being here and uh thank Paul us UCLA to really make this possible um UCLA is very important uh let's say um Step In My tour because I've been uh since uh March doing uh university colleges around the country presenting my films um all kind of them because uh the spectrum is a little bit wide I think we all live the covid-19 that kind of made us think that we all going to die so for me it's like New Birth rebirth and some of the films also were kind of um not forgotten but they were like um passed uh and I think uh this has G me given me the opportunity to kind of with the help of Scholars and uh uh people like Paul who actually see an uh let's say um uh a Content that is kind of actual you know and that is um uh could be discussed you know with uh all the actual thingses and I'm very grateful that uh tonight we are going to talk about afro futurism because I think that's how the programming kind of organized it uh and um I'll say something just uh now is that every time they talk about Africa it's always about the past or about the present future is kind of forbidden space and I think Cinema on the top of it is um uh medium of the future somehow you know speculating you know with Cinema asking the what if question so obviously uh as a filmaker it's not easy to kind of find the language to be able to express that future or at least to question it so um I'll leave it to the fil to kind of uh open the whole uh discussion and uh I'll be there later with sheline to discuss more thank you very much for coming well I just wanted to thank you once again uh Jean Pierre for joining us this evening for a coners ation over two evenings of uh screenings of your film and uh this evening of course we're going to screen to we just saw the uh amazing blets and thank you so much um I wanted of course to begin maybe thinking about uh the title of this series which is African futurism and um of course the blets is uh named the first uh African science fiction film and so I want to talk a little bit about science fiction uh in the African context and of course uh the second film that we'll be screening tonight is uh naked reality which is your 2016 also science fiction film so I wanted to perhaps uh in this Q&A reflect upon these two films uh within the context of African futurism and of course you know uh as we' seen tonight these are two science fiction films and uh specifically afro afrofuturism uh is an expansive term I think very much it encompasses African diasporic cultural production engaged with themes of science technology Futurity and perhaps Liberation um but I was wondering if you would share with us uh for you what is afrofuturism or African futurism and if you can perhaps think of the distinction that's sometimes made between these two terms uh and further uh why have you perhaps returned to science fiction and could you share with us some of your thoughts on these two films using Cinema's capacity to show us possible futures um to speak to an African or perhaps specifically cameroonian uh context you have spoken about the capacity of afrofuturist narratives to inject motion uh which disrupts the static postcolonial narratives and perhaps restarts the march of history after a prolonged Hiatus I love that line but I was wondering if you could start thinking about African futurism uh in terms of the work that you've done within thisf specific genre and how it resonates with um our larger understanding of AFR futurism thank you it's a very long question H I was hoping you'd stop me okay but um what I want to say is that uh if I just want to start with this specific film you just uh saw uh I was actually surprised when I heard that it was the first African science fiction film um many years after we did a film that's where uh I don't know who actually somebody said this is the first African science fiction film but when you look at it it's actually many genre or many impossible genre meaning uh it was supposed to be a horror film it was supposed to be a detective film because they were police he was supposed to be science fiction F but um I like this thing I always calling movies from a place where the local perspective made it kind of impossible to make uh the horror because it said uh death has become a party funerals are the best parties you know like you could see and then um at the beginning it says how do you make uh science fiction film in a country that has no future but the whole idea was to play with um The Impossible genre meaning uh that uh almost cinema at least uh as we mimicing because there's a lot of mimicking Cinema um it's kind of impossible you know when you take it from the African perspective um even if the whole F at the end becomes um the genre it's supposed to not be actually U now uh if we talk about the idea of Science Fiction it's for me I want to keep it simple it's about speculation asking the what if question uh and um and what if is allow you to think actually it's putting um it's making you think about the possible the possibilities uh and I think um um with Cinema we can have what is you know and uh also think what is possible so um U I would say in this specific case if I take L it was what I would call a cautionary tale it was really to say if this this this that element of the Cameron Society I see um continuing this is what we're going to have you know so it produce also for some people kind of d World um but for me the two girls in life actually are like in trans they it's like they don't want to kind of die with the whole context the whole society that is almost dead you know so that's why they have all this energy and that's why the film is like them doing everything not to kind of sink with with everybody else and um uh obviously it's uh the them is talking to camon society so uh and and in that sense uh I wanted to believe that when we made the film this was not already The Cameroon Society um maybe today is unfortunately right but uh when we made the film for me it was a kind of extrapolation of what I was thinking or I was sensing um is kind of um the society we might have uh so so um so in that sense the speculation is not um uh there's always this idea of giving a moral or being moralistic in while you make a film so that you kind of try to do good somehow you know with the film uh I don't know how much you know you succeed or I succeed doing this but it was the idea that at the end um whatever is coming out uh is following this kind of um relation between the reality and whatever is being created uh as a speculation you know because I was going to ask you and I think we had talked a little earlier about sort of looking at uh the blood ETS at almost a 20-year remove it's set in 2025 which is next year and um you know I was uh sort of thinking about this kind of temporality about the idea of this kind of impossibility the speculative being used to uh perhaps you know project a kind of possibility and I mean it's it's kind of dystopic in many ways I mean there might be some hope at the end but it's a dystopic narrative but I was thinking about what does it mean to you to look back on this film right this science fiction film about a possible future and then to be here now in the future in in a certain sense to watch it now um uh how has that uh sort of um time that elapse of 20 years um has it changed your approach to this film or thinking about the speculative so it's true that next year it won't be a science fiction film anymore so um I cannot there's no doubt that when I was making the film I I was very pessimistic uh and uh uh and I'm still kind of so um I don't think it's has increased or or diminished but I just think uh it kind of stayed you know almost uh at the same level uh I would say now the the comes the relation as a femer we have with the society what do you decide to show what do you decide to tell and what do we expect from this story you're telling you know um I would say I um we give too much power to filmakers really in terms of future I don't think we qualify really to say what would happen or uh but um what is really important I think is um and that's kind of what what I'm personally interested in again looking at it from from a place I tend to always say that making movies from a place more than making movies for an audience I think it's important to um uh see that Cinema is not finished I think somehow we tend to live like it's done you know like whatever we can do with Cinema is there and that's what we see now and um um I still believe that at least if I look at Cameroon Society I feel that Cinema can do something you know um and that's why I'm trying to work I mean at least when I produce a film trying to kind of keep that illusion or idea that Cinema can do something uh I don't know how much uh the films are are successful in doing this but at least I have that belief you know uh uh now it's up to us to to reinvent it to kind of find what how to work with it uh so that um Cinema does something to the society um and this has nothing to do with the audience the success of the film or but it's just that as a medium uh uh I think it's a transformative tool or it could be a transformative tool right um and maybe to maybe think about your use of Cinema here I mean it's such a you know I think inventive you know at times experimental uh sort of questioning itself throughout you know um what genre is this what are the possibilities or the limits or the boundaries that I can uh begin to uh ex uh sort of explore right um through this Cinema and um I wanted to maybe think about uh the use of the uh mongu uhu mongu and to think about that in terms of uh sort of presenting your protagonists the two young women um is mai and Chuchu and uh to also think about the use of this I guess it was a precolonial practice um that was matriarchal right at its core um and how you bring that into this particular text um um one thing about um uh Cinema in general is the idea that um not Cinema the I was trying to play with the the idea of modernity and future and science fiction but using something from the past you know so that those two are not really incompatible I didn't want to kind of oppose that past tradition and uh something that's supposed to be modern and futuristic I like the concept of mongu I read about it um as a woman's secret society and A Woman's secret society where women kick men out and take over when things are bad so that we but things are have to really be bad so for me in the film I was feeling like you know Cameron is bad you know like with the government and all this so it's time for these mongu to be performed and in this mongu business it was supposed to be older woman but based on what I the story the young women are the one who are closer to power somehow and they only had to be kind of coached by the the Elder one so that's kind of how I um I I organ I organiz it uh and I think uh actually the very first idea of this film came from can I tell the story is a little bit long go ahead what happened is that I went to Cameroon and uh um I went to the ministry of culture and I remember that the the director of cinematography said go say hello to the minister and I I was like why I don't have anything to tell him say no you should go and say hello so okay I'll go and say hello but to say hello to the minister you need to feel a kind of uh audience like for form request for meeting then somebody asked me to pay for it and I'm like first I didn't even want to meet this guy now I have to pay for it so I said no so and I went back home and then I had a neighbor uh young girl like this who was like ah you want to see the minister she has the phone of maybe 10 Minister numbers and she was with another friend who had other numbers of you know all the so I feel like between these two they had the whole government you know like in their hands so they could make a coup if you know it was possible anyway so I just thought about how real it was you know that they actually were so close to power but the power somehow that is not performing for the people so I just thought somehow they could be at the very center of a story like this um the way in which it's um sort of uh transpires is as though the the two protagonists um Chuchu and majoli are possessed at certain points and you use this uh amazing way of showing a type of um body right uh the body in motion um either through fast or slow motion or through the use of prosas and I'm really amazed at the way in which uh sort of majoli and Chuchu appear in this film um first the the image of of maoli um uh as a sort of acrobatic um sort of use um and to think about uh the ways in which they appear on screen as opposed to the males who are usually older or decomposed or in pieces uh so I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about your decisions in terms of uh some of those um formal uh strategies or Aesthetics of your film yes uh the the body of the girls is actually a weapon you know that's what I had to weaponize their body somehow because also is what these men want you know that's the whole business transaction is happening because they know that they want the body the body so they want to take the money you know by pretending or trying to give the body or something and so it was is a transactional object is also the weapon and also um the the body that is dead is also kind of represent all the other ones you know so the body was actually Central for sure uh in in in in in in in in the whole story and um one of the element but that's came after you know it was that uh some people are shocked by you know that representation of black bodies you know and [Music] um my answer was like just like ah we used to walk naked anyway so why are you worried about all this body being naked so nudity in um of the black body I mean it's kind of very religious in terms of you know uh either Islam or Christianity but he not African for sure because you know so but I'm just saying that uh the fact that I picked the girls of that age not younger not older uh because I was feeling that it was political you know everybody is intervening on their bodies you know religion politician every so the I thought he was very good to play with that because that's was making the F more political if it's a guy nobody cares but girls everybody's involved so I thought it was very important to kind of put it at the center and play and play around it thank you um Jean Pierre I was wondering if we would open up a little bit maybe bring in our audience so I'd like to turn to see if there are any questions from the audience right now and we have um someone walking around with a microphone um hi I was just wondering uh mostly about your comment on the changing genres throughout the movie um if what part in the process for you did that come about did while you were writing it or um coming up with the idea did you initially want to play with multiple uh genres throughout the film or did that just come about naturally as you started to um go into production and and watch the story unfold it was kind of a concept um it's always challenging to make make genre films feeling that you are going to be mimicking something and not being original somehow so and not beyond beyond the fact that you're not original but it's also the reality you are writing from for example when you call the police in Cameroon they ask you if you have money for gas you know so that they won't come because maybe uh and that's not that's a fact in fact somehow they don't have enough gas in the car even you do a car chase you try to be mimicking Hollywood fil but obviously very few people have gas in their car so Ju Just to kind of show the kind of the limit the of the context and the kind of life we have there and when you start mimicking and just pretending to be doing um I don't know cchase or any genre without taking into account the context so for me was a kind of creating a dialogue with uh with the genre itself you know from the Afghan perspective hello um I really like the idea of uh merging together uh ancient concepts with modernity and like your film making approach and I felt like with the uh secret society of the female women it felt almost like it was the ancestors looking over the women uh so I wonder if there are any other spiritual or cult for references that you include in the film that we may have missed I'm not a specialist now so okay I I just read now actually I know more after I made the film but before I didn't know much um the whole mongu I um I read in a book and I happened to meet afterwards the author of the book who was ethnologist but then um uh and then I met but recently a lady who practice it you know uh we did actually little F about it like she did a kind of Performing the mongu so I have a kind of film where she's she's one many directing she was saying what what people should be doing no so um [Music] um beside that I don't really think of anything else um uh no that was the only really as kind of African traditional practice or mystical practice in the film in the next one maybe there's something else um uh thank you uh very much for the the movie I think he capture some of the concept that most of the Africans live in Africa who knows about Africa um live every day but I have a question but I'm gonna first put it in two part first I want to commend you for not taking that aspect of like gentlemen say making pre Africa against to like a two different type of Africa for me what you say I I would like you to expand it why don't think that there is no precolonial Africa and there is no new Africa it's just a continum why do you think it's a Continuum that's was my first question and the second question is why you you asking a question at the end of the film but yourself I believe you didn't take a stance in a film are you afraid of the present using symbolism of the past to project a future that you want to see but you don't want to tackle the present why you think that's my opinion you didn't even try to is a political you didn't want to go there or as a sen asked why okay so [Music] um so the second question made me forget the first so first question what you say is there is no incompatibility and you see them most of the time in the west they try to see to talk about precol Africa versus Africa you said there is no incompatibility the practice that wasn't PR Africa never went away they still exist so is it what you're saying or you asking I'm you say there is no compatibility I want you to if you can talk why you think there is no compability between today so it's a film it's not really reality for now so what I think is that um at least what I did for the film is that um they tend to blame the past for example to be responsible or African culture to be respons responsible of an African that is behind you know I just think that's not the past is not the problem the African Traditions are not the problem so uh somehow the idea of moving forward if there's any moving forward actually uh has nothing to do with burden of African cultures uh and actually next film too you're going to see the because kind of um the same thing how um African traditional or religion of the cult of the ancestor could be seen in the future so um so that was just the idea that uh even in the aesthetic way visually we we tend to kind of separate both so and we we think um um modernity the future uh is being kind of held back by the tradition so I actually even use the past as inspiration for something futuristic you know in this film uh for the second question uh U now I forgot the second um but what I want to say is that um my my uh it's I I hope that Cinema could do more I think I mean I wish Cinema could do more and um I made this film called the president because we had a president in Cameron that has been there since rean here I think so he still president and he's running next year again so uh we we we is 90 I don't know how many and he will be 100 years when he ends the next next one so but the idea that um because when I made the film it was banned and then somebody said I made the film to it was actually during a Q&A like this that I made a film to kind of Kick the prison out or something and I said I wish and it was reporting in the police reports that what I say that I wish you know uh so sometimes we give Cinema so much power uh and I really wish you know he could do more um and I think how many of you have watched your film and then you go back home and you kind of refuse to sleep because something should happen you know you just feel like I'm just going back to my normal life after seen this film you know it doesn't make sense something should happen that frustration for me I [Music] um I say that Cinema is doing things to us I mean I I'm sure about that and I think most of you have watched a kung fu movie for example you know what made you feel that after watching a kungu movie you can fight you didn't get any training you you know and I'm sure if you fighting you'll be beaten up but the feeling of feeling like strong that you can fight you know uh I think it's just one idea of what Cinema is doing to us or can do to us you know uh and Cinema has been kind of hijacked I think by the business because we write to make money really like uh from the first sentence uh I like a lot the howto books in America there are many howto books you know um for films also so uh the one I prefer is how to ride a screen P that SS in 21 days um so so the the it's about recipe and I remember I I did one one Workshop like this um I think the script was great but it was nothing to do with what I want to say so I think a cinema now is being uh done in a certain way because now it's been a while and I think we don't question and we don't even remember uh What uh what it is or what it could be actually uh I also think most of you have Netflix now because that's the trend have Netflix and um uh I don't know how many films on Netflix 1,000 10,000 I don't know how many and sometimes you flip on the 10,000 films on Netflix and feel like there's nothing I'm going to bed how can you flip on I don't know how many films like all these films they feel like there's nothing and if you take the cost of each film and you add them up is a billions of dollars and you still feel like there's nothing I'm going to bed okay why is it the case I think this should make us question a cinema we practice Cinema we watch uh uh if it doesn't do things to us if it doesn't if you we can't we can flip on so many films and we still feel like it's uh there's nothing so um and and I think today also and it's question for us F makers you know and I agree with your question uh everybody has a phone and with a cinema quality camera uh it was not the case 20 years ago you know and I think if everybody potentially can make a picture or image you know we we we we were the only one we that could make them 20 years ago it means that we should rethink what is to be a faker okay um and now people are talking about Ai and at some point I was wondering which what what kind of film would AI make it would make Netflix film you know so it means clearly that as filmmakers we're not relevant anymore you know unless we kind of reinvent you know how we practice Cinema and how we do it you know uh and and in that case the future is now yes right right and we were talking about you know sort of these uh sort of immersive Technologies or Ai and you know VR a um but I think you know as you are speaking you're talking about another kind of invention um it's technological but it's also about thought um and the kind of work that you're doing in the blets uh in terms of putting forth science fiction uh and uh even the hybridity of genre um horror science fiction film Noir and beginning to sort of question yourself and the film questioning itself right uh in many ways becomes part of this kind of new invention but I think I wanted to return again to science fiction the first thing you said was oh I was surprised that your film The Blood ads was the first science fiction African science fiction uh why did you sort of say that here first of all and thinking about you know sort of the larger sort of African Cinema why do you think your film why do you think that at this particular moment you put forth this particular film [Music] um okay it's mainly to allow us to go where we're not allowed to go or we kind of don't want to go uh somehow um I'll talk again about this science fiction film that is called the president because it's very science fictional to think that 92 years old can president can die so in the film it's kind of speculative he's disappearing the president so the film was not much about telling who he was how the all the stuff he did in running the country but it was to give space to people to kind of think about things they're not supposed to be think think of um in Cameron when you say what if the president dies say no no no he's not going to die so say but if is say no no no no it's fine so why are you talking about this what is your problem so you see how people avoid for serious reason too because some are afraid some but it just that uh they don't see life you know beyond him and so there are many space like that we not allowed to go MH and Cinema the time of the film at least could be designed or carved in a way where we kind of go there even if when the film is over we go back to where we were you know so I I think in that sense to talk about science fiction I think it it's it gives that possibility to venture you know uh uh to places that uh uh for some reason I don't say forbidden but we don't go uh there is this um French philosopher Michelle s who says that um uh at least talking about formatted film I don't want to point Netflix but I'm just saying formatted films like scripted by how to formula a recipe are doing one thing to the brain he says that uh it's um making us almost unable to get used to the unknown you know kind of our brain is being trained only with the known you know so we never venture to the unknown and he says that we will be a kind of species that will disappear because when the unknown will come we won't be ready we won't know how to deal with your unknown so somehow he says that all these formatted FES you know are kind of training us not to be able to survive as a Speers you know I think you know as a sort of to maybe build on this idea of a sort of um a cinema that you know allows us to see uh an otherwis of possibilities I was wondering if you could perhaps think uh talk a little bit about naked reality and the idea of returning to science fiction was this 11 years later um and using it again uh this particular genre for its capacities um what was it like to return to the genre I mean you had done Le in 2013 but in 2016 you once again um put forth this science fiction okay I would say I um I really don't didn't plan it per se like in terms of I'm going to do a science fiction film but it's the idea that leads to that you know what are you trying to convey what is so the best form I believe that uh there's not one formula for many films I think one film one formula so each film should kind of find his own formula and find its own um uh language and even uh semiotics in terms of language so um the idea behind naked reality was um The Cult of the ancestors meaning How African practice religion you know and sometimes is not it's not incompatible with being Christian or being Muslim the idea of believing that the Deads are not dead so how it's kind of uh for granted it's taking I mean people for them it's kind of obvious that the dead are not dead so now there is something you will hear when somebody has bad luck because in that film the disease is bad luck you know bad luck like you have a flu or so because it's also kind of something easy to fix because uh um bad luck being that maybe there's a kind of some you just need to make sure you talk to the ancestors but ancestors meaning your parent or grandparent or great grandparent you happen to know who passed away and you just talk to them instead of considering them that consider that they are not there anymore so uh the idea is that even if in a lot of African country a lot of cultures African culture you have this we as feem makers you know we we haven't been able to represent some of these things you know visually and also in terms of narratives so um I was um I was thinking that it's good to kind of start uh creating the images of this kind of imaginary even if again uh I put the story 150 years after uh I don't know which year it was but okay but I I I think it's also about going where we're not allowed to go or going where because when you say Cinema it's not about those things you know Cinema is almost about mimicking uh what other filmmakers have done or close or what you've seen uh so how do you kind of venture to spaces where uh there is so much to say to show you know but uh nobody has done that before so I just thinking that it was very important to to produce something in in in that vein and he happened that putting it in the future was kind of helping me not to make people feel like this is some kind of ancestral from the past so yeah voila wonderful okay and I think there's a hand here yes hello thank you so much for being here and for your film I love the soundtrack of this film and I am so struck not only by the music and the sound palletts that you incorporate but the structure of the soundtrack and the Sonic motifs and the Sonic passages that recur throughout the film so I was wondering if maybe you could talk a little bit about the motivation behind that yes uh there are two things we tried to do uh okay uh we uh okay we we thought that we need something kind of that will like make uh like how you call like trans like something repetitive something [Music] um Transit yes so uh and and um uh because the Fe was all at night uh and we couldn't have the sense of the space so uh we kind of took the model of por head this the band where you hear voice very far so he was giv a notion of space you know uh and then I uh I found this uh trip up guy who's making electronic music but playing it as a drum like he he put sound in his box whatever it was and then he start playing it he never like the same every time he does it uh and then I gave him some Cameroon music he put it in uh and then he start playing this thing um it's a guy from Chicago actually was in Paris and then I invited the Cameroon singer to work with him first they had a fight because he was like she said this is not music but then they end up working together you know so uh but uh it kind of gave some kind of nice thing according to what we wanted but it was also again to to stick to the concept of saying let's uh play an electronic music like a drum because he plays it like as a drum you know uh and then uh and then add like these voices African voices so so voila that's how we kind of did it incredible okay well I think that uh may end our Q&A I just want to thank you Jean Pier we'll be able to talk more NE tomorrow after the two screenings but I want to thank you so much for speaking about the blets and talking about your work and uh looking forward to tomorrow thank