By Dora Thompson
Next Monday, you can take a journey into the depths of Africa as it struggles for liberation from the Third World with the premier a new documentary called Concerning Violence.
USM staff and students gain free entry to the screening at Space Gallery with a valid university ID as the audience gets an inside-look on the fight for freedom during the sixties in Africa, taking the audience through stunning scenes of guerrilla soldiers, nighttime raids, and everyday African life during a time of violence and decolonization, and the decolonization efforts against it. The film screening is a part of the USM Philosophy Symposium’s annual film screening and the group will be hosting two more films this semester.
“The Philosophy Symposium has held a film series with Space Gallery for over seven years now, showing films about philosophers, philosophical problems, and topics.” explains Jason Read, a professor of philosophy. The group consists of students who want to practice and engage in the theory of philosophy.
“It’s a good place for people to get together to talk about ideas and issues,” says Sergey Miller, a senior English and philosophy major.
Concerning Violence is directed by Swedish director Göran Hugo Olsson, who also directed an archival film called an archival film Black Power Mixtape, which combined footage from the black power movement. Concerning Violence uses footage that Swedish filmmakers, who went to Africa during The Cold War, wanting to document anti- imperialist liberation movements in Africa. Olsson pieces together their footage, trying to find the most relevant and up to date scenes.The film offers commentaries from African revolutionaries like Amilcar Cabral and Thomas Sankara. The film is loosely based around Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth. Written in 1961, Fanon’s book talks about the effects of colonization on people, politically and psychologically. He talks about the language of oppression and critiques nationalism and of imperialism.Olsson incorporates the first and last chapters of Fanon’s book in the film, read aloud by singer, rapper, and actress Lauryn Hill.
“I am definitely going to go see this,” says sophomore English major Ben Davis.
Split into nine parts, each tackles a different issue about the violence in Africa, which is still relevant to audiences today. So make your Monday night important while supporting a USM group, and tackle world issues at the Space Gallery on January 26. Doors open at 7:00 p.m. and the film starts just a half hour later.