PRISM departs from the perspective that the photographic media are technologically and ideologically biased, favouring Caucasian skin. Its three filmmakers pool their distinctive approaches and experiences to explore the relation between skin colour and cinematography, between white-centric privilege and the photographic media.

w/ English subtitles

The screening will be followed by an aftertalk with the three filmmakers.

WHO?

Eléonore Yameogo studied film in her native Burkina Faso before moving to Paris. She is from the younger generation of African female filmmakers who dare to explore controversial subjects as part of a search for a new African aesthetic centred on diaspora experiences.

Rosine Mfetgo Mbakam grew up in a traditional Cameroonian family. She learnt about filmmaking through the Italian NGO Centro Orientamento Educativo and would go on to make programmes for Spectrum Television before leaving Cameroon for the first time in 2007 to study film at INSAS in Belgium.

Teacher, researcher and artist An van. Dienderen is interested in the role of the image in our multicultural society. She explores the contradictions between fact and fiction, representation and experience, the imaginary and the observable – not to mention the absurd, poetic and often moving stories behind them.
https://www.anvandienderen.net

With the support of: Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF), KASK & Conservatorium, the School of Arts of HOGENT and Howest, Africalia, the city of Ghent, ARGOS center of audiovisual arts, Icarus Films & Beursschouwburg.

This film was selected for the 59th New York Film Festival. 

From their catalogue: “Among the many ways that racism is deeply entrenched in our film culture is a technical one: the lighting for movie cameras has always been calibrated for white skin, with other production tools reflecting the same bias throughout cinema history. Three filmmakers collectively explore the literal, theoretical, and philosophical dimensions of that reality in this discursive, playful, and profound work of nonfiction. In a series of thematically linked, provocative discussions and interrogations, Eléonore Yameogo from Burkina Faso, Belgian An van. Dienderen, and Rosine Mbakam from Cameroon chart the making of their own film, while exploring the cinematic construction of whiteness and how this relates to power, privilege, and the myth of objectivity. An Icarus Films release.“