International Conference on Hausa Films
Kano, Nigeria,
(First Announcement and Circular)
August, 2003
Theme:
Hausa Home Video: Society, Technology and Economy
Introduction
Media in general, and especially feature films, have
the power to create situations and contexts. Mass media and the cinema — via
the home video industry in developing societies such as Nigeria — supply major
parts of society with information on current affairs and ideas held by a
various sections of the society. They also serve as cultural mirrors that seek
to entertain and educate.
Since the burgeoning of the Hausa
home video — commonly referred to as “films” — there has been a spate of
commentaries on the phenomena, especially in Northern Nigeria. The industry,
owing its antecedents to television soap operas and dramas of the early 1980s
in urban Northern Nigeria, has succeeded in coloring the cultural landscape of
a traditional society. It provided channels and conduits through which youth
were able to express themselves more vividly in both direct and metaphorical
methods, and in the process send messages to their respective communities. And
while primarily an urban phenomena, the rapid availability of media
technologies such as the home video and the cassette tape recorder, has created
a further impact in peri-urban and rural communities of Northern Nigeria.
Since the full-blown development
of the Hausa home video industry, there has never been a sustained focused
study on the phenomena: its evolution, development, impact and potentialities
as an agency for social transformation. There had been criticisms
of the phenomena, particularly from the religious establishment about the
possible effects of the phenomena on the moral development of young Muslims in
a traditional society.
Rationale
In the light of the need to
systematically document, analyze and predict the phenomena of the Hausa home
video industry in Northern Nigeria, an informal meeting comprising of industry
participants and researchers from the academic community was convened at Kano in
August 2002 to brainstorm the possibility of Kano State hosting a proposed
International Conference on Hausa Films. The meeting unanimously agreed to the
proposed conference and adopted that it should be a bi-annual affair, with the
first Annual Conference on Hausa Films slated for March 2003.
Objectives
Thus the objectives of the
conference would be:
- To provide an in-depth analysis
into the Hausa home video productions
- To bring Hausa home video into
the international limelight for possible foreign inputs and collaborations
- To stimulate professional and
academic discourse into the Hausa home video industry
- To serve as an avenue for the
positioning the future directions of the industry
- To systematically serve as a
research and documentation point on the Hausa home video industry
- To serve as an avenue for
interaction between critics and practitioners of the Hausa home videos
- To serve as a center for the
sustenance and imbibing of standards into Hausa home video industry
The general theme of the proposed
conference is Hausa Home Video: Society, Technology and Economy.
The suggested sub-themes would include, but not exclusively restricted, to the
following:
Sub-Themes
Hausa Society and Visual
Entertainment (Contextual issues – society and religion)
religion and entertainment culture among the Hausa
audiences and the consumption of popular films
Hausa Muslim women and Hausa home videos
“stars”: “classical” or contemporary, and their
being role models
“Copy cat” syndrome and social issues in Hausa home
video
Film Production and
Classification (technical issues)
popular genres: comedy, melodrama, action, etc.
directors and authorship in Hausa home videos
crossovers among film and other popular media:
novels, music, television,
the impact/popularity of foreign films — especially
Indian and Hollywood — among the Hausa
emerging technologies and Hausa home videos
Film Distribution and
Consumption (marketing and mass appeal)
production, distribution, and marketing of Hausa
home videos
Hausa home video in the Hausa Diaspora
analyses of individual films
cost-effectiveness of Hausa home video (aka is it
worth it?_
Financing the Hausa home video
Future of Hausa Film
Industry
Status and future direction of Hausa home videos
Response to market forces
Standardization of the industry
Critical discourses on Hausa home videos
Government regulation and the future of the home
video industry
Bridging the divide: role of non-Hausa into the
Hausa home video industry
Hausa Film industry as a “profession”
Further individual topics can be
created out these sub-themes
Logistics:
It is proposed
that the Conference will take place in Kano (venue to be confirmed) in August
2003 and last for five days. The second day will have a
reception night which will be a forum for new films to be premiered. The
plenary sessions will be held each day from 9.00 a.m. to 1.00 p.m., and from 4.00 p.m. to 6.00 p.m. Exhibitions and film shows will be held from 8.00 p.m. on the first day. There will also be “gala” nights for the entire duration of
the conference.
The format of
participation at the conference would be in the form of a paper presentation.
Presentations will be in the length of 20 minutes with 15 minutes reserved for
discussion at the end of the plenary session. The languages of the presentations
are English, French, and German. Panel proposals are welcome. Funding of
primarily graduate student participation is anticipated. The publication of
selected papers from the conference is planned in hard copy and online at www.hausafulani.com web site. The
official language of the conference is Hausa, but papers in
English and French will also be accepted. To facilitate communication, authors
of presentations in Hausa, French or Arabic are asked to provide summaries in
English when they deliver their papers.
Interested
participants are encouraged to send e-mail abstracts (250 words) to Prof. A.U.
Adamu at abdalla@hausafulani.com.
Write “Hausa Home Video Conference abstract” in the subject line.
Further
communication about the confrence will be posted to individuals as well as on
the Kano Online website (www.kanoonline.com).
