Future History — Anne-Lise Agossa

   _{Future History}_{. 2021

(13 minutes)}_{screened at Pavilion Carré Baudouin, Paris 10.2021

   curated by Christelle Oyiri and Fanta Sylla

screened at the CSM Graduate Showcase 18-21.06.2022

  curated by Cynthia Igbokwe}

_{Sub-Saharan Africa was a site of socio-political tension in the late 20th century, where countries fought to gain independence from colonial powers and subsequently found themselves between the imperialist West and the Soviet communist East. These countries were seen as blank canvases where both powers sought to expand and assert their influence, particularly through soft power.

Future History is a short film that explores the link between reality and fiction and the techniques and methods that constitute one and the other. Through the analysis of the nation-states’ tools: monuments, and those of the civilians: community building and storytelling; the film is set in and investigates a speculative future where oppressive African governments have been toppled by their peoples. Thus, reclaiming agency of their self-representation and that of the nation, through the creation of a decentralised system by, through, and for the people.

“We are first and foremost invested in the construction of sub-saharan modernities through contrary, resisting, hybridising and collaborative means. We use the creation of new visual worlds as an expressive tool of aesthetic and stylistic symbolism as well as functioning as the narrative-production and image-transmission mechanism at service of shifting socio-political ideologies. Spaces of, for, with and behind filming productions and disseminations; from techniques, materials, modes of synthesis to projected realities, are all apparatuses that can be exploited by regimes.”}

_{*drawings contain images sourced from Che Onejoon Archives}