Remembering Thérèse Sita-Bella - Africa's First Female Filmmaker
At the beginning of the 20th century—when African cinema first emerged—film reels were the central cinematic technology.
African life was only shown during the colonial era by white, colonial, Western filmmakers, who painted Africans as exotic "others" in a bad light. One of the oldest cinemas in the world is found in Tunisia and Egypt. In 1896, pioneers Louis and Auguste Lumière exhibited their films at Hammam-Lif, Alexandria, Cairo, Tunis, and Tunisia. Many people credit Albert Samama Chikly with being the first maker of indigenous African film; he began showing his short documentaries at Tunis's casino in December 1905. Chikly would go on to produce significant early milestones with his daughter, Haydée Tamzali.
The women behind the evolution of the craft of filmmaking are as usual not well known and celebrated. In the 1970s there were very few African women who were filmmakers quite unlike today. Highlighting the stories of these women is significant in creating a holistic account of the history of filmmaking on the continent. The account is not complete without the story of Therese Sita-Bella.
Cameroonian-born Thérèse Bella Mbida (1933–27 February 2006) was raised by Catholic missionaries while being a member of the Beti tribe in southern Cameroon. She moved to Paris in the 1950s to pursue her education after earning her baccalaureate from a college in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon. She first became interested in journalism and film in France.
Sita-Bella began her career as a journalist in 1955. Later, in 1963, Sita-Bella became Africa's first female filmmaker. Sita-Bella co-founded the French journal La Vie Africane, where she worked from 1964 to 1965. The monthly magazine set out to be "at the forefront of the fight for Black-African cultural unity." Among the 20 writers working for the magazine, she was the only African woman on the team. In 1967, She returned to Cameroon, joined the Ministry of Information and became Deputy Chief of Information.
Sita-Bella was the director of the 1963 film Tam-Tam à Paris, which followed a Cameroonian National Ensemble group while they performed in Paris. Tam Tam à Paris is sometimes mentioned as the first movie by a woman from sub-Saharan Africa. In 1969, Tam Tam à Paris was screened at the inaugural Week of African Cinema, which would later take the name FESPACO.
Sita-Bella was regarded as a trailblazer and one of the few women in the male-dominated film industry. She said the following when discussing the movie business in the 1970s:
"Camerawomen in the 1970s? At that time we were very few. There were a few West Indians, a woman from Senegal called Safi Faye and I. But you know cinema is not a woman's business"
Colon cancer caused Sita-Bella to pass away at a Yaoundé hospital on February 27, 2006. Sita-Bella was laid to rest in Yaoundé's Mvolye cemetery. At the Cameroon Cultural Centre, a movie theatre with her name is called Sita Bella.