Cinema Revival 2020: Rosine Mbakam on Muna Moto

It's May 20, Cameroon Independence Day. In the Mvog-ada neighborhood of the capital city, Yaoundé, the streets rise in music to begin the celebrations. Some prepare for the parade; others, like the young girl Mambar, stay at home. For her, it is a choice not to go to the parade. May 20, like every other holiday, is an opportunity to help her parents with household chores. Mambar has asked her mother for permission to go and see the film Muna Moto. Her mum will only agree if she finishes her chores.  Once done with the chores, Mambar goes to see her mother, who, without saying a word, understands what her daughter is asking for: her permission. She nods her head to approve Mambar’s outing, which immediately inspired a sprint. Mambar had an hour before the beginning of the film in order to get one of the best seats because the neighbors who own the TV often demand that you tidy up their house. Mambar arrives at the neighbors' house without waiting to be let in, takes what’s needed, and cleans the whole living room. She is allowed to sit on the floor in front of the TV, which is the best place. From there she won't miss anything. Then, just a few minutes later, the main window of the house is blocked by the heads of the other children jostling for a better position. The expectation, curiosity, and envy are perceptible in the eyes of all these children staring at the TV. Silence sets in at the beginning of the credits, as the title Muna Moto appears.

All this is just a fantasy of how Mambar would have wanted her day to go. In reality, Mambar spent that day selling smoked fish in the small shop her mother runs. 

The next morning on her way to school, Akoko, Mambar's excited friend, tries to narrate the movie to Mambar. While her description is disordered, the emotion is great. Watching Akoko excited, Mambar is jealous. She would like to feel that sensation. But she will have to wait a few years to watch the movie and understand what Akoko was trying to express to her. It was our Cameroonian reality that we saw for the first time on the screen—our language, our streets, our traditions, our songs. As if seeing this film filled the void of an imaginary world...

Today, this little girl Mambar is me, Rosine Mbakam. I always have this feeling of incompleteness to fill, the emptiness of my history, a falsified, truncated, imaginary world that we have to rebuild today. Seeing the film Muna Moto allowed me to identify myself, find myself, and imagine myself in my own reality. To confront myself with it, like the two main characters in the film, Ndomè and Ngando, who resist to submit... It gave me the freedom to dream.

Above all, it gave me the weapons to face the same situation that Ndomè faced. A few years back, a village chief came to see my father to ask for my hand in marriage. As I was about to say some of Ndomè’s lines from Muna Moto, my father took the lead and said no to this chief. I was in awe and proud of him. Everything my father offered us in terms of educational opportunities was not a duty or chance but a project. It was with this same desire for freedom that, a few years later, I canceled a marriage engagement that I had accepted out of obligation and not out of love. This freedom allowed me to choose to make films when my family wanted me to go to a medical school. And it's no coincidence that the main character in my first short film, You'll Be My Ally, is called Ndomè, like the main character in Muna Moto.  

An African film industry is developing. Production is dense. But we notice that the void is always present. We reproduce Western production and directing patterns, out of step with our own history because we still haven't appropriated it. It is important to show today the films of all these pioneers, Jean-Pierre Dikongué-Pipa, Ousmane Sembène, Djibril Diop Mambéty...  They remind this generation of mine that this is where our history of cinema began, but not our history. Our history is far beyond what they would have us believe. No one but us will be able to give it back to us. Let's dare to imagine it and look at the world from our point of view.