African film feted by French allies
African cinema is usually drier than the Sahel. Few sub-Saharan nations possess even a single working motion-picture theatre, and the cost of producing a film must often be weighed against the necessity of opening a primary school. Compared with African cineastes, Canadian directors live in Hollywood’s Golden Age. (One exception is Nigeria, where the existence of 40 million privately owned VCRs and DVD players and a widespread reluctance to step outside after dark have resulted in a thriving straight-to-video industry that routinely produces more than a thousand features a year.)

Nevertheless, a number of recent African movies will be shown at the Vancouver International Film Centre from February 2 to 5. As Film Centre director Alan Franey explained to the Straight, “[We] began programming films in relation to African Heritage Month last year at the invitation of the Alliance Franí§aise. France has been instrumental in the financing and coproduction of many of the best African films over the decades, and with an impressive ongoing sense of responsibility, they’ve also undertaken to supply prints to interested organizations like ourselves. We simply try to choose the best of them, including recent award winners, and to mix narratives with topical documentaries.”

In the former category, we find Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s Ghanaian-made Abouna, the story of two imaginative young boys with a missing father, and Abderrahmane Sissako’s music-saturated Mauritian drama, Waiting for Happiness. In the latter, we discover Mozambique, Journal d’un Indépendence; Toussaint-Louverture, Haí¯ti et la France; and Les Petits Soldats.

> Mark Harris

Mayor Violent?
Is Mayor Sam Sullivan drawn to violent imagery and war nostalgia?

That’s a yes, based on director Joe Moulins’s revealing National Film Board documentary Citizen Sam, especially for anyone who remembers the 2005 “bloodsport” mayoral campaign.

Despite all he’s overcome, Sullivan uses words and actions in the film that betray a violence and aggression, as he eschews having anything handed to him in his fight to overcome his disability, time on welfare, and thoughts of suicide earlier in life. Moulin’s 80-minute documentary about Sullivan’s rise from East Side kid to 2005 mayoral victor ties these elements together.

There will be a free showing of the film Tuesday (February 6) at 7 p.m. at the Rio Theatre (1660 East Broadway, RSVP to 604-666-5553 as the screening is already nearly full), with an open-mike discussion hosted by filmmaker-broadcaster Avi Lewis afterward.

“I’m not saying much about it,” Sullivan told the Straight in a voice-mail message. “It is what it is and will be what it will be.”

Citizen Sam shows Sullivan out-scheming Vision Vancouver’s Jim Green on issues like drugs, Woodward’s, COPE’s split, and 2010. He turns long-time Green allies against the man, who in the end was badly suckered at every turn—and humiliated with all manner of faint praise—by three-term councillor Sullivan. Sullivan had (and fully utilized) better and more effective PR spin doctors/advisers/friends. Moulins places us right there as Sullivan is briefed by campaign manager Colin Metcalfe and Reputations Corporation’s ubiquitous Wayne Hartrick.

But “Citizen” Sam gets off-script and just plain violent too, telling the camera he’s going to “keep his foot on his [Green’s] goddamned throat and see if he’s still breathing at the end of it all”.

“I like the fact I’m underestimated,” he says earlier in the campaign. “They pat me on the head and I rip their throat out.”

Message to Citizen Sam: You are going to have a tougher time playing underestimated victim in the future.

> Matthew Burrows