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Amoussou Sylvestre., director. L’Orage Africain: Un continent sous influence. 2017. 88 min. French, with English subtitles. Benin, France. Koffi Productions. Vimeo. $5.00.
In his previous feature-length films, Africa Paradis (2007) and Un pas en avant (2011), Sylvestre Amoussou sought to provide alternatives to established narratives concerning the African continent. This is most evident in Africa Paradis, in which the director depicts an imaginary (yet perhaps not inconceivable) future world in which Africa is prosperous and powerful, while Europe is poor and underdeveloped. For Amoussou, film functions as a medium in which to re-imagine and re-articulate the continent’s current situation through a fictional disruption of the current world order, a project that he continues in his latest production, L’Orage Africain: Un continent sous influence. What would happen, this new film asks, if an African state were to nationalize the extraction of its natural resources, forcing Western companies to either abandon their investments or to begin working according to an African country’s terms?
This tense political drama begins just as President Ezo Essogbe of Tangara—played by Amoussou himself—declares the immediate nationalization of “all the means of production run by Western companies in Tangara.” According to this “Africa Plan,” foreign companies’ exploitation of the country’s coltan, diamonds, uranium, and other resources is to cease immediately. All future profits, the president tells the nation, will go to the state’s coffers and will...