SOA
CARAVAN ECRANS NOIRS
After a long time of waiting, working and preparing the Ecrans Noirs Caravan begins celebrating its 25th anniversary.
From Thursday the 30th of September to Saturday the 2nd of October 2021, Ecrans Noirs began its tour in commemoration and celebration of its 25th anniversary at the Hotel De Ville esplanade in SOA. These three days were very busy, for this team as they had to set up sound, arrange sitting positions and even share fliers and talk to people in this community about the three days program. It is therefore for this reason that, on the 30th of September part of the team was at the site at 9:30am to make sure everything was done and ready on time.
Work began with the mounting of the stage and white screen for film projection, then setting up of the sound system and electricity. Then after that tents and chairs. Meanwhile all this arrangements were going on, there were other tents set up for some people to come and sell and show case some of their products to those present for the program. On this tables, women showcased things like, honey, Liquid soap, oil, whiskey, food and traditional attires just to name a few. People passed by this tents asking questions about these products and some bought.
Day 1.
Back to the programs of the day, at 5pm, people started coming to the Hotel De Ville esplanade to watch the movie as planned and follow the concert. But due to some technical faults the program did not start in time as expected. Another reason for the delay was because the team had to wait for the arrival of the Mayor Mr. Essama Embolo and the D.O of this community. While waiting, there was a music team singing live music to entertain the audience which they did fervently.
The DO and Mayor arrived and the program started as expected with the projection of the 1hour 33 minutes movie titled Ballon D`or, directed by Cheik Doukoure. This movie was released on April 13th 1994 in France and it talks about an 8 year old boy living in a small village in Guinea, who dreams of playing soccer in a big leagues but was discouraged because even getting a ball is not easy. But thankfully a local doctor by name Agnes Soral surprises him with a ball which helps him to start his dream.
Day 2: CARAVAN ECRANS NOIRS.
After the movie, live music was played and concerts followed after that. This marked the end of the first day of the Ecrans Noirs Caravan. The next day which was the 1st of September, there was no need for sound setting up, because everything was done the previous day. People simply gathered in the same location for the film projection as promised. For this second day, the film projected entitled was, “Mon Ami Fela”. This film was produced in 2019 and is a Brazilian biographical documentary film directed by Joel Zito Araujo and produced by Luiza Botelho Almeida. This movie is a documentary that explores the life of legendary Nigerian musician Fela Kuti from the perspective of his long-time friend Carlos Moore.
Day 3.
The third and last day of this Caravan had a larger population as before and everything went of smoothly as planned. For the last day, a special movie made up of two genres drama and comedy titled, “Au Nom du Christ” was projected. It should be noted that this 1hour 30minutes movie was released in October 1993 and was directed by Roger Gnoan M`Bala. This is an Ivorian movie that won the FESPACO grand prize for best film. This film talks about an untutored pig keeper who has been thrown out of home and he then falls into a river and has a vision that causes him to go back to his people and save them for Jesus Christ. He then refers to himself as Jesus`s Cousin “Magloire”. Some people considered him to be a runner, charlatan and a prodigy but despite all this he reigned as a master and he pushes his rules to extremes by creating his own commandments which included men marrying as many wives as possible, and him also being crucified. This movie simply recalls with humour the proliferation of pseudo-Christian sects and the outrageous acts they convey in the African continent.
For all this three days, throughout the caravan, concerts took place and some of the groups and people who performed where YECKO, PUISSANCE 4, MARTELY AND another live music band headed by Ruben Binam, they were basically in charge of entertaining people with songs of all genres.
According to some of those who were part of the audience, they approved that they enjoyed themselves and thanks to the Ecrans Noirs caravan, they were able to have a nice, memorable and interesting weekend. Some even went ahead to say they are ready for next year’s anniversary hoping it will be celebrated with them and believe it will be as good as this years.
It should be noted that, this is just the beginning of the Caravan and the next town which Ecrans Noir will be visiting is Nanga Eboko from the 14th to the 17th October 2021.
By BETTY NJILAH.
(6 059) Comments