Based on recent ethnographic research that employed filmmaking as a method for fieldwork and knowledge production, non-fictional video is discussed as an "in-between" representational and relational form of scientific and artistic practice. In the present case, the author's fieldwork on youth marginality in Cape Verde was complemented by an open-ended filmmaking process in a low-income neighbourhood in the crime-ridden city of Praia, Santiago Island. The non-directional videotaping of the "clique's" daily routine—the members of which have different backgrounds as breakdance artists, former or active gang members, workers, students, etc.—in an improvised shack at the margins of a middle class district was conceptualized as an experimental and decidedly "incomplete" artistic practice that would eventually bring along insights into the dynamics of youth marginality and youth culture from an emic "street" perspective, dialoguing with the traditional anthropological research perspective. Resting upon a longitudinal and "slow" research strategy, the ongoing project seeks to capture (and understand) youths' life histories within contexts of urban marginalization both in an "immediate", image-based, fashion as in the form of traditional (text-based) ethnographic writing.

The Yoruba universe which the Yoruba film seeks to represent has grown and expanded overtime in order to accommodate and relate with the forces of urbanity. In response to this, such Yoruba Nollywood filmmakers as Tunde Kelani and Kunle Afolayan have adopted metropolitanism as a motif for plot and thematic construction. This makes it possible for them to represent the contemporary Yoruba universe to include its interplay with other Nigerian or African cultural backgrounds. Thus, the films of Kelani and Afolayan, feature characters of different Nigerian or African cultural backgrounds and have metropolitan spaces and times that cut across cultural or national boundaries. Similarly, in presenting and resolving the issues that are raised in their films, these filmmakers have also projected the importance of cultural integration having recognised its dearth as a major challenge in many urban African settings. Against this backdrop therefore, this study examines metropolitanism in selected films of Tunde Kelani and Kunle Afolayan, and the projection of cultural integration in addressing some of the vicissitudes that characterize urban African settings like family problems, marital challenges, love, sexuality and insecurity.

On the challenges of ethnographic filmmaking in Urban Africa. A critical analysis of "Maputo: Ethnography of a divided city" (2015, Maputo)

Fernando Tivane, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul/Instituto Superior de Artes e Cultura

The documentary "Maputo: Ethnography of a divided city" (2015, produced by João Graça e Fábio Ribeiro from the Mozambican film studio "ANIMA. Estúdio Criativo", 74 min.) is based on the results from an ethnographic research project on the city and draws a polyphonic image of the capital of Mozambique. It recounts the history of Maputo as a divided city from the points of views of different social actors: a young female boxer, a church pastor, a merchant, and many others. In this paper, I will problematize and question how the filmmakers chose these actors and how they and the urban become represented. I also ask which possible interceptions in between the protagonists perspectives on the city we can elaborate from the documentary. And last but not least, I'll come to discuss ethical challenges in the process of filmmaking, using the example of this documentary produced by the two Mozambican filmmakers.

This paper aims to bring together audiovisuals shot in Yaoundé (2014) and Paris (2011). It draws on two particular digitized narratives - one produced in Yaoundé the other in Paris - by one and the same musician, Otu Bala, to compare some of the visible parts of the imageries of the two cities at play. Focusing on the interferences between the social imagination involved and the particular subjectivities with which these are addressed through the artistic work: The examples shown were directed for the musician itself - a Cameroonian reggae artist - conceptualized as gifts in return. The two products are analyzed in the framework of a University of Basel PhD project on the impact and use of the camera in the (ethnographic) research process. Therefore the analysis presented will be merely (self)referential and asks for:

How are these two clips shaped by mediated imagination and do they (re)shape this mediated imagination?

Answers to the question raised will be sought especially in regard to the applied montage and framing of the analyzed products/music videoclips. An analysis of footage shot around the productions of the official clips will be presented in relation to the published material in order to contextualize the artistic productions and refine more clearly the subjectivities implicit to the artistic and scientific positioning.