Clando, a 1996 film by Jean-Marie Teno, will be shown at 6:30 p.m. Friday, April 1, in room 321 of Morey Hall on the University of Rochester’s River Campus. The showing is free and open to the public.
Clando takes up the theme of repression and the relationship between the “third” and “first” worlds from the point of view of an illegal taxi driver in Douala, Cameroon. Through this character, Teno focuses on migration (from Cameroon to Germany) and political violence and questions political commitment, its methods, and the legitimacy of countering the violence of power with violence of a different kind.
Teno was born in the Cameroon, Africa, and has lived in Paris since 1977. He belongs to the generation of “young” African filmmakers of the 1990s. Through his documentaries, features, and short films, Teno explores issues of colonialism, neo-colonialism, migration, dictatorship, and the abuse of power in Africa.
After the showing, a reception with African foods will be held in room 314 of Morey Hall. Clando is part of the continuing Africa Video and Film Series sponsored by the Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies at the University of Rochester on this semester’s theme of the Diaspora in Exile. Co-sponsors for the screening are the Cameroonian Association of Greater Rochester, the Film and Media Studies Program, and the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures.
For more information on the series, contact Institute Fellow Dior Konate at (585) 273-5345 or check the Web for updates at www.rochester.edu/College/AAS/.