Prism

For PRISM, Belgian filmmaker An van Dienderen invited Brussels-based Rosine Mbakam from Cameroon and Paris-based Eléonore Yameogo from Burkina Faso to work together on a film in which the differences in their skin color serves as a departure to explore their different experiences with the biased limitations of the medium. Photographic media is technologically and ideologically biased, favoring Caucasian skin. Such white-centricity means that photography assumes and privileges whiteness. How can the three filmmakers with different skin colors, be together in one frame? How can they create a common film on this topic? The film problematizes the objectivity of the camera and its inequality of power to tackle other inequalities in society based on skin color. While the film deconstructs these issues, it also tries to reconstruct by creating a film in a collaborative manner, which overcomes these biases. We envision PRISM as a chain letter, interweaving scenes made by the three filmmakers in dialogue with each other.