HONDO: Inside ghettos, those who make a lot of money have no interest in seeing the ghetto becoming aware. They don’t want millions of Africans to refuse to see James Bond and prefer the work of Sembene Ousmane or Med Hondo.
We are all colonized. As long as people are not liberated, they are ghettoized. Today the Third World countries are colonized mentally, economically, politically, and culturally.
REID: In Mauritania, are your films censored?
HONDO: No, since 1978, my films havebeen sold in Mauritania. Before that they were censored because they criticized the former government. Sembene Ousmane has had a similar history. But not all African filmmakers want to make films as I and Sembene do. All filmmakers are mentally colonized. Some only want to climb the social ladder and own a car or villa or have glamorous sex. It becomes abnormal when they continue to dream impossible dreams. I tell them, “You can’t do it. You are black Africans.” Even if films based on a Hollywood style have won a prize in Cannes, they’ve been killed in commercial outlets. We can put it in these terms: The enemy will not allow us to be independent if we ourselves do not become autonomous. We still have to go to all the festivals — to Moscow, Hollywood, to Chicago — but only under certain conditions. The Western world has created these festivals as markets. Filmmakers there should not have an" illusions about the folklore.
They invite Med Hondo, Souleyman Cisse, a Morrocan, a black American, just to prove that they are open-minded. If Cannes became a promotion festival for African filmmaking or Third World films, then I’ll encourage it. Now we have to go there to insult them if necessary and tell them: “You are a rip-off. You’re robbers. What about the Civil Rights you always advocate? It’s only for whites, not for Africans, not for black Americans. It’s only good for you. You continue to exploit and kill these people.”
If we have the chance, we should always go to Hollywood with our films. When the films are not sold or shown in a theater, if they are good and professionally recognized as such, then we want them to be shown the way U.S. films are shown in France or Africa. When they don’t show the films, tell them, “You, Motherfuckers. You’re rip-offs, gangsters, mafiosi…” And then in Moscow, if they don’t buy the films, do exactly the same thing. One must go to such festivals to fight, and to make contacts under certain conditions. For WEST INDIES (1981), I went to MGM in New York, and they told me they were ready to invest $1.5 million right away if only I changed the subject. I told them: “Fuck it. If it’s not the same subject, why ask me to do it? Do it yourself.” If Hollywood asks me to do a film, I’ll say O.K. and propose a film on Malcolm X or any other story on black Americans. I want them to leave me free to do the film as I feel it and as black Americans feel it. Otherwise, I’m not interested.
— Med Hondo (from Jump Cut, no. 31, March 1986, pp. 48-49)
Interview was taped on July 6, 1982, with Med Hondo, actor, director and spokesperson for the African Filmmakers Committee (Comit Africain de Cinastes). The other members of that committee are these: Sembene Ousmane (Senegal), Paulin Vleyra (Senegal), Souleyman Cisse (Mali), J.M. Tchissou Kou (Congo), Karamo Lancine (Ivory Coast), Abacar Samb (Senegal), Daniel Kamusa (Cameroon), Diconque Pipa (Cameroon), Jules Takam (Cameroon), Mustapha Alassan (Niger), Safi Faye (Senegal), Ola Balugun (Nigeria), Film du Ghana, Sidiki Baka (Ivory Coast), Haile Gerima (Ethiopia) and Julie Dash (USA).
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