Cine-Agora Africana: Meditating on the Fiftieth Anniversary of FESPACO

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-40
Author(s):  
Aboubakar Sanogo

To mark the 50th anniversary of the Pan African Film Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO), Aboubakar Sanogo presents a sweeping survey of the festival's history, influence, and future directions. He notes the festival's function as a home for African filmmakers and cinema, as a space for cultural encounters, as a library and archive of debates on African cinema, and as a barometer of health or lack thereof of the various national film industries on the continent. After reviewing this year's selection of films, which reflect ever-present concerns over memory, the geopolitical, and the effects of powerful external forces, Sanogo concludes that FESPACO faces formidable challenges to its self-renewal, including its mandate to define the values of African cinema and present them to the world.

Author(s):  
Martin P. Botha

The following is an excerpt from a larger manuscript HOMOSEXUALITY AND AFRICAN CINEMA, a co-operative effort of Dr Botha (CityVarsity, Film & Television and Multimedia School in Cape Town, South Africa) and Professor Dethier and Dr. Willemse at the Free University of Brussels. IN A GLITTERING ceremony at the 49th Berlin International Film Festival a full-length South African film, The Man Who Drove With Mandela won the Documentary Teddy Prize. It was rewarded for its unique contribution to gay and lesbian history and for bringing forward a challenging and politically engaging subject. The Man Who Drove With Mandela was directed by Greta Schiller and researched by the co-writer of the outstanding compilation on South African lesbian and gay lives, Defiant Desire, namely Mark Gevisser. No other film in South African history chronicled the lives of lesbian and gays in the way Gevisser's documentary has done(1). It is a...


Subject Jihadi threats in Burkina Faso. Significance After excessive delays in responding forcefully to jihadi militants, the Burkinabe government is strengthening its military presence in the most vulnerable provinces along the northern border with Mali and Niger. The decision in early 2017 to adopt a more offensive posture was prompted in part by the emergence of Burkina Faso’s first domestic extremist group, Ansarul Islam. However, local communities’ fear of the jihadists and skepticism towards the authorities will make it imperative for the government to win both their confidence and active collaboration. Impacts The terrorism threat will hasten specialist army training and armaments to operate against small, mobile opponents. Demands for an emergency development programme for the north will gain momentum across the political spectrum. The recent successful hosting of the FESPACO pan-African film festival could prompt a boost in tourism numbers, if attacks are contained.


2021 ◽  
pp. 026553222110361
Author(s):  
Chao Han

Over the past decade, testing and assessing spoken-language interpreting has garnered an increasing amount of attention from stakeholders in interpreter education, professional certification, and interpreting research. This is because in these fields assessment results provide a critical evidential basis for high-stakes decisions, such as the selection of prospective students, the certification of interpreters, and the confirmation/refutation of research hypotheses. However, few reviews exist providing a comprehensive mapping of relevant practice and research. The present article therefore aims to offer a state-of-the-art review, summarizing the existing literature and discovering potential lacunae. In particular, the article first provides an overview of interpreting ability/competence and relevant research, followed by main testing and assessment practice (e.g., assessment tasks, assessment criteria, scoring methods, specificities of scoring operationalization), with a focus on operational diversity and psychometric properties. Second, the review describes a limited yet steadily growing body of empirical research that examines rater-mediated interpreting assessment, and casts light on automatic assessment as an emerging research topic. Third, the review discusses epistemological, psychometric, and practical challenges facing interpreting testers. Finally, it identifies future directions that could address the challenges arising from fast-changing pedagogical, educational, and professional landscapes.


Itinerario ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 471-473
Author(s):  
Paolo Sartori

AbstractThis thematic issue of Itinerario brings together a selection of papers presented at the international conference Beyond the Islamicate Chancery: Archives, Paperwork, and Textual Encounters across Eurasia, which was held at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna in early October 2018. The conference was the third instalment in a series of collaborations between the Institute of Iranian Studies at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of Pittsburgh examining Islamicate cultures of documentation from different angles. Surviving precolonial and colonial chancery archives across Eurasia provide an unparalleled glimpse into the inner workings of connectivity across writing cultures and, especially, documentary practices. This particular meeting has attempted to situate what has traditionally been a highly technical discipline in a broader historical dialogue on the relationship between state power, the archive, and cultural encounters.


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