Lisbet Holtedahl

Before the Feast

Filmed in 8mm, during the Ramadan of 1984 in Ngaoundéré, Northern Cameroon, the film relates the everyday life of a Fulani woman, Zeinabou. Scenes filmed in a joyful and relaxed atmosphere present domestic activities and interaction between the main protagonist and her husband, children and neighbors as they await the Ramadan feast.

Wives

Alhajji Ibrahim is an Islamic scholar who has served as judge at the Sultanate of Ngaoundéré in Northern Cameroon for 46 years. The film follows Alhajji during the last years of his life, focusing on the relationships in a polygamous family. Living far away from urban centres, people like Alhaji and his family struggle to adapt to the arrival of modern education, their increasing marginalization, worsening poverty, and, in recent years, the constant threat of the Boko Haram insurgency. Shot over several years, Wives provides rare, intimate glimpses into the dynamics of a West-African polygamous Muslim family, and the challenges faced by an older generation whose norms and values are losing legitimacy in a rapidly changing environment.

The Sultan's Burden

Sultan ISSA MAIGARI of the Adamaoua Province, Northern Cameroon, is the traditional political and religious leader experiencing a violent transformation of the political structures in his country. He struggles to survive as a leader through the first democratic elections in Cameroon. How is he to keep the confidence of his court, of the local population and how is he to satisfy the president and the central authorities? His servants, his praise-singers, his wives, his concubines are all trying out solutions for him, but not necessarily successful ones.

Four Wives and a Marabout

The film is about Al Hajji Malam Schaaway – Quran teacher and court member at the Sultanate of Adamaoua – and his four wives. The camera follows everyday life inside a polygamous household and, also, Al Hajji in his daily work as a religious teacher.

Few are like father, no one like mother

A film about women’s life in the fishing village of Ersfjordbotn in northern Norway. Filmed in the middle of 1980’s, when the the regions of Northern Norway were undergoing rapid social change, the film presents several personal life stories of elderly and younger women, problematizing the social marginalization of local women.

Is What They Learn Worth What They Forget

Shot in 1986, the film presents scenes from the everyday life of a Mbororo pastorialist family living on the outskirts of Garoua, by then, the biggest town in Northern Cameroon. It documents the gradual sedentarisation and Islamisation of the Mbororo and presents rituals, chants, dances, healing practices as well as the transmission of traditional knowledge about medical plants and local religious beliefs.

Niger-Norway

A comparison of women’s life in Niger and Norway. Film footage and photos taken in the beginning of the 1970s in the village of Maïné-Soroa, in Eastern Niger, are juxtaposed with audio-visual material from Tromsø in Northern Norway. Using a simple, didactic voice-over, the film questions many stereotypes about women’s life in Africa and Norway. It is an attempt to use audio-visual tools and fieldwork experience to teach cross-cultural understanding and ethnocentrism in Norway.