ADIFF ’16: 93 Days

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Nigeria is now Ebola-free, but don’t take their word for it. A Nollywood crew filmed the story of the 2014 outbreak on location in the very same hospital and isolation wards involved—and lived to tell the tale on the festival circuit. The ripped-from-the-headlines story of the dedicated medical team that contained the Ebola threat is dramatized in Steve Gukas’s English language 93 Days (trailer here), which screens as part of the Spotlight on Nigeria at the 2016 African Diaspora International Film Festival in New York.

In August of 2014, Nigeria was still untouched by Ebola, but the virus was very definitely present in West Africa—particularly Liberia, where an estimated fifty (five-zero) doctors cared for a population of over four million. That is where grumpy business traveler Patrick Sawyer flew in from. He looked a bit peaked on the flight and practically imploded once he reached the hospital, but he refused to cooperate with efforts to diagnose his malady. Recognizing the tell-tale signs, Dr. Ameyo Adadevoh imposes quarantine protocols, at least as best she can in the woefully under-prepared First Consultants. Honestly, the up-scale hospital would be a perfectly fine place to get treatment for a broken leg, but they just didn’t have the infectious disease facilities.

Of course, the tests eventually confirm the Ebola diagnosis, but by that time, several doctors and RNs are already symptomatic. They will be whisked away to a makeshift isolation ward in Yaba, where they will be treated by Dr. David Brett-Major, an American WHO specialist. Eventually, Dr. Adadevoh will also check herself into Yaba, after a short period of denial.

Unlike most outbreak thrillers, 93 Days is more about responsibility than panic and terror. Essentially, it portrays a group of doctors who get a dose of their own medicine and in some cases, heal themselves. However, it is a bit controversial in Liberia, with most of the criticism focused on the casting of a Nigerian actor as the Liberian Sawyer, but one cannot help suspecting the film stirs deeper national resentments.

The portrayal of the doctors’ professionalism and heroism is refreshing, but Gukas and editor Antonio Rui Ribeiro could have easily pruned some of the talky slack. Still, the polish of Gukas’s production stands head-and-shoulders above what many viewers might expect from Nollywood. This looks like a real movie with a respectable budget. It even features two legit Hollywood actors.

Tim Reid essentially phones in his brief appearance as a DC health official, who duly explains why a raging outbreak in Lagos would be less than optimal. On the other hand, Danny Glover is in it for the long haul as the sage-like hospital director, Dr. Benjamin Ohiaeri. There are probably more Evangelical Christian prayers in 93 Days than all of Glover’s previous films combined, but he still does his thing, radiating grizzled greybeard dignity.

Somkele Idhalama is also quite forceful as Dr. Ada Igonoh, the sequestered infected staffer who would probably be voted most likely to survive. Yet, probably the biggest surprise is the charismatic and humane performance of British Alastair Mackenzie as the American Dr. Brett-Major.

In a way, 93 Days represents the sort of earnest but unsensationalized medical drama we could have seen back in the days of Playhouse 90. It is the sort of film that honors sacrifice and suggests prayer has value during a time of crisis, even if it never directly changes anything. It really could find an audience in Red State markets if marketed correctly. Recommended for fans of Nollywood and fact-based docu-dramas, 93 Days screens tomorrow (12/3), Sunday (12/4), and Wednesday (12/7), during this year’s ADIFF.

ADIFF ’16: Gang of the French Caribbean

In the 1970s, there was a demand for postal money orders. That meant post offices often carried considerable sums of cash on-hand, yet they did not have the same level of armed protection common to banks. Being a symbol of the French government made them even more desirable targets for the disillusioned Jimmy Larivière and his gang. For a while they live high and feel empowered, but internal divisions and external pressures will inevitably lead to bloodshed in Jean-Claude Flamand-Barny’s Gang of the French Caribbean (trailer here), which screens as the centerpiece of the 2016 African Diaspora International Film Festival in New York.

Like many colonial immigrants from the French Antilles, Larivière feels like the victim of a bait-and-switch, falsely promised serious job-training by the Bureau for the Development of Migration in the Overseas Departments, but only offered menial employment on arrival. Unlike many disillusioned French Caribbean migrants, Larivière channels his frustration, falling in with a team of armed robbers led by the aptly named Politik.

Politik talks a good radical game and he has connections to radical separatist organizations back in the French Antilles. Unfortunately, he is also loyal to a fault with respects to the gang’s weakest link: Molokoy, a heroin addict would-be pimp deeply in debt to Algerian white slavers. Molokoy’s erratic behavior, simmering resentment, and cowardly violence make him a ticking time-bomb. Larivière also has his own long-term problems, including Nicole, a progressive former resident of Martinique, who recognized him during his first hold-up.

Gang follows a familiar gangster rise-and-fall trajectory, but the 1970s period details are spot-on. Indeed, it captures all the chaos and confusion of the era with a good deal of subtlety. Larivière’s semi-protective relationship with Molokoy’s Algerian prostitute and the French Algerian military veteran (played by Mathieu Kassovitz), who in turn protects him from the Algerian gangsters seeking to reclaim her are particularly intriguing. Of course, there is plenty of anti-colonial messaging, but Flamand-Barny wraps those bitter pills in easy to digest action.

As Larivière, Djedje Apali broods like nobody’s business, while Adama Niane just radiates bad vibes as Molokoy. Eriq Ebouaney also sets off plenty of alarm bells as the slick and vaguely sinister Politik. Whenever those three circle each other, we expect fireworks to follow shortly. Kassovitz makes the most of his all too brief experience as the shotgun-wielding café proprietor Romane Bohringer brings dignity and dimension to Nicole, one of the few female characters who is not largely stereotyped.

Although Gang is just ninety easily-manageable minutes, it feels pretty epic. Fittingly, Larivière and company namecheck the self-styled revolutionary gangster Jacques Mesrine, because the film would make an apt triple-feature with the Vincent Cassel Mesrine duology. Recommended for fans of historical gangster films, Gang of the French Caribbean has its red carpet gala screening this Saturday (12/3) during the 2016 ADIFF.

ADIFF ’16: Hogtown

When writing about the disappearances of Toronto theater magnate Ambrose Small and author Ambrose Bierce, Charles Fort (as in “Fortean”) wondered if someone was “collecting Ambroses.” Maybe they should have looked in Chicago. That is where Daniel Nearing relocates Small (now Greenaway), using his case in much the same way Doctorow employed the Henry K. Thaw-Stanford White murder in Ragtime. In 1919, Prohibition was not yet the law of the land, but Chicago was already a dangerous place. African American police detective DeAndre Son Carter has a unique vantage point on the city’s vice and violence in Daniel Nearing’s Hogtown (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 African Diaspora International Film Festival in New York.

Soon after making racist complaints about Chicago’s demographic trends, the missing-presumed dead Greenaway was last seen trudging to points unknown in the snow. Suspicion will logically fall on his wife and the company account, who seem to be surprisingly close. However, the mystery remains unsolved. It would be quite a coup if Carter could deliver the killer. Consequently, he devotes quite a bit of time to the case, but the direction it takes will become awkward for him. Meanwhile, he pursues a romance with a woman who might even be more damaged than himself.

Like Ragtime, the presently and future famous walk in and out of Hogtown, especially the somewhat PTSD-rattled Ernest Hemingway and his soon to be estranged mentor, Sherwood Anderson. The privileged and the marginalized both have their roles to play. In the case of Herman Wilkins, it is the dual role of Carter and homeless Marquis Coleman, an unusual casting strategy that is not exploited in an Adrian Messenger way for novelty’s sake. In both cases, Wilkins is a raw and seething presence, who commands the screen.

Arguably, he is the only one who really has a chance to shine, because most of the supporting women get most of their screen time during stilted sex scenes, while the rest of the men are either decidedly minor players or somewhat caricatured, like Alexander Sharon’s gawky Hemingway.

Frankly, Nearing’s style would overwhelm all but the most forceful thesps, which clearly does not include Wilkins. Somewhat akin to the visions of Guy Maddin, Nearing’s black-and-white fantasia freely blends history with fiction, but it lacks the postmodern playfulness of the Canadian auteur. Nearing also has a tendency towards static tableaux, relying on voiceovers and intertitles to handle much of the heavy lifting exposition and storytelling chores.

Nearing and producer Sanghoon Lee earn high marks for some absolutely arresting cinematography, but the hollowness of their visuals sometimes tries our patience. There are only so many interior monologues a film can offer up, before risking charges of pretentiousness. Hogtown goes well past that point.

Look, at least Nearing is trying for something. He goes for broke and face-plants several times. Yet, some of the shortfalls could have been softened during the editing process. Stylish to an extreme fault, Hogtown might interest patrons who appreciate the idiosyncrasies of the micro-budget scene when it screens this Friday through Tuesday (12/2-12/6), as part of this year’s ADIFF.

ADIFF ’16: Gurumbe. Afro-Andalusian Memories

Spain had slaves. This is not exactly front page news to anyone who knows a thimble full of Cuba’s colonial history. However, it has been conveniently forgotten on the Iberian Peninsula, where there was also plenty of slave-holding on European soil. In that context, amateur musicologists will not be surprised to learn African music forms helped shape the development of flamenco. Academics and musicians examine the legacy of Spain’s deliberately forgotten slave trade and its resulting cultural impact in M. Angel Rosales’ Gurumbé. Afro-Andalusian Memories (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 African Diaspora International Film Festival.

When historian Aurelia Martín Casares started researching slavery in Spain, she was told it never existed, but she unearthed over 2,500 slave deeds of sale just during the time she was working on her thesis. It turns out there was an extensive slave trade conducted within Spain proper, largely localized within the port cities of Seville and Cadiz, which of course, were major centers of Andalusian society. According to one on-screen expert, Spanish slavery even pre-dates the African trade, trafficking slaves from Caucasia (as in Southeast Europe into Eurasia)—a provocative historical episode that remains under-examined in culture and academia.

Of course, it is easy to hear the influence of African poly-rhythms in flamenco, if you listen for it. Viol da gamba virtuoso Fahmi Alqhai takes the discussion a step further, illustrating how traditional African musical forms also inspired the syncopation of baroque music through his catchy arrangement of Gaspar Sanz’s “Canarios.”

There are a number of musical performances in Gurumbé, but the tone of the film is surprisingly measured, authoritative, and at times something close to academic. As a result, it is highly credible and convincing. Rosales and his experts certainly make the case Spain remains in denial with respect to its national history as a slave owning and trading country. Indeed, some commentators parenthetically note with irony how Spain is only too willing to revisit the crimes of the Franco era, yet it refuses to face up to earlier national controversies.

There is some lovely singing and dancing in Gurumbé and a whole lot of awkward truth. Frankly, Rosales is pitching the material at a higher level than causal viewers might expect, but it is a good thing that he refuses to under-estimate his audience. Recommended for those with a serious interest in Andalusian culture and music, Gurumbé. Afro-Andalusian Memories screens this Thursday (12/1) and Sunday (12/11), as part of this year’s African Diaspora Film Festival.