Forms and Variations of Children’s Relationship to Space in Francophone African Fiction Films

Abstract

The child figure is a recurring topic in North African and Sub-Saharan fiction films, and can even become a dominant theme for some directors. Narratives centred on childhood are often linked to questions of individual and collective identities, to the sharing of values, and to the relationship between tradition and modernity. A deeper analysis of these films shows that particular emphasis is laid on the connections between child protagonists and spaces. Space – private or public, legal or not – is never represented in a neutral way; it is always conferred specific functions. Places are used by children to emancipate themselves (the river in Mossane by Safi Faye, 1996; the steam room or the medina for Noura in Halfaouine by F. Boughedir, 1990), hide (the four girls threatened with excision in Mooladé by Ousmane Sembène, 2006), or compete (Nopoko and Bila’s forbidden games in the bush in Yaaba or abuses that Karim commits in A karim na Sala by I. Ouedraogo, 1989 and 1991). Children travel (alone or in groups; often or more rarely; they walk, run or ride donkeys) or break rules (for social or personal reasons), and they sometimes move the story forward with their unique way to invest, disinvest or cross action zones (the frantic race in the street during the kidnapping serves as both the leitmotiv and the climax of the plot in Muna Moto by J.P. Dikongo Pipa, 1976).African film directors pay particular attention to cinematographic techniques (depth of field, camera angles and movements…) that can be used effectively to articulate storytelling and staging, to glorify the landscape and topography of cities and villages, and to enhance the shape and configuration of outlying and unusual places. The plots and the characters of these films offer an alternation of intimate, collective, landlocked, or rugged spaces. Referring to precise examples of full-length features, this paper aims at analysing how directors significantly stage – spatially and te