Mining for Minds

MINING FOR MINDS is the cameroonian filmmaker Jean-Pierre Bekolo's concept he is sharing with German film producer Barbel Mauch with extensive experience in Africa film production.

ABOUT US

Jean-Pierre Bekolo is a noted African film director from Cameroon. He already garnered attention at the Cannes Film Festival with his debut film Quartier Mozart (1992), with a style that is playful, comic, and sardonic became the representative of a new generation that has been working against the restrictive expectations of African cinema, mixing genres and linking pop with politics. He directed Aristotle's Plot (1996), the African entry in the British Film Institute's series of films commemorating the centenary of cinema that has included the participation of artists such as Scorsese, Bertolucci, Frears, Miller, Reitz, and Godard. Part action movie send-up, part parody of Aristotle's rules, part satire on Africa's preoccupation with itself, this first African film selcted at Sundance shows Bekolo to be an "increasingly fearless trickster."His avant-garde political thriller Les Saignantes (2005) that premiered at the Toronto film festival was nominated in two categories at the French Césars in 2009 and is now considered to be the first African sci-fi movie. Les Saignantes won the Silver Stallion and Best Actress Awards at Fespaco (Pan African Film and Television Festival in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso) in 2007. Bekolo has also created in 2008, a video installation called An African Woman in Space that was on display at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, as part of the Diaspora exhibition curated by Claire Denis. Banned in Cameroon in 2013, Jean-Pierre Bekolo's controversial film Le President questions the phenomenon of Africa's "perpetual governments". His new film, a 4 hour documentary Les Choses et Les Mots de Mudimbe is part of the official selection of the 2015 Berlinale. "An unusual film, as fascinating as its object/subject, opulent, sensitive, clever, and radical. Another station of delightful postcolonial, cosmopolitan filmmaking". Alongside his work as a film director, Bekolo is an activist, he writes and publishes, in addition to teaching at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and at Duke University. Recently he has been dividing his time between the USA, France, and Cameroon, and starting in the summer of 2015 he will be a fellow of the Artists Program at the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in Berlin.

Bärbel Mauch created Bärbel Mauch Film in October 2001 in Berlin with the intention to co-produce films on an International level. The company also offers consulting agency services for production, distribution and for film festivals, especially from Germany, France and the African Continent.

Bärbel Mauch has an extensive network of contacts thanks to her considerable experience in production, distribution and as publicist with ISKRA in Paris as well as many film festivals and with her own company. For over thirty years now, she has worked for Französische Fimtage Tübingen, where she organised the African Section and since 2005 has been a member of the selection committee.

Bärbel Mauch studied Romanistic, Arts and Biology at PH Reutlingen (Germany).

 

In 2004 she prepared a film package of African Films for the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb) in co-operation with EZEF.

 

Since 2006 she has been a Consultant at Berlinale Talent Campus and expert for talents from Africa and the Middle East.

 

2008 and 2009, she coordinated the SHOOT! Workshops in documentary film production for the Nigerian Film Cooperation in Jos,Nigeria; and in 2009 coordinated workshops for the festival Lagunimages in Cotonou/Benin.

2009 - Expert at the workshop Nigeroon/Cameria in Bamenda/Cameroon, organised by the Goethe Institut.

2009-2014, she was Chairwoman at the African-German co-production meeting during the festival Ecrans Noirs, Cameroon, organised by ag dok (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Dokumentarfilm) and APIC (Association des Producteurs Indépendants camérounais) in collaboration with Goethe Institut Yaoundé and supported by German Films.

Since 2012 she collaborated in this framework during the IREP Documentary Film Festival in Lagos/Nigeria at a producers meeting with participants from Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa, France and Germany. Also in collaboration with the Goethe Institut, Lagos.

Actually working on concepts with key partners to create a sustainable network in Western Africa together with partners in Germany.

Bärbel Mauch is member of the Mokolo Foundation’s Executive Committee.

Mokolo is an Internet platform, which aims to promote and support the film- and audiovisual sectors in Africa and its diasporas.

 

Films (selection): TINTA ROJA by Carmen Guarini and Marcelo Cespedes, Co-production (Argentina), HOME AND AWAY by Bettina Clasen (Germany, France), THE COLONIAL MISUNDERSTANDING by Jean-Marie Teno (Cameroon, France, Germany), CELLULOID DREAMS by Uli Gaulke, Production Manager and Assistant of the director in Burkina Faso and USA (Prod. Flying Moon)

FARO by Salif Traoré, (Mali, France, Canada, Germany) and JEAN GENTIL by Laura A. Guzman and Israel Cardenas (Dom.Republic, Mexico, Germany) both supported by the World Cinema Fund of the Berlinale.

MY NAME IS NOT ALI by Viola Shafik (Eypt, Germany) – production adviser.

In production: Who speaks of Victory? by Adama Sallé (Burkina Faso)

 

Different films in pre production in cooperation with international partners as consultant on the production and distribution strategies.

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