Visual Resources
DVDs available from the Visual Resources Centre in the library.
JE NE SUIS PAS MOI MEME
Director Alba Mora, Anna Santamaria
Release 2009
Length 50 mins
Location Cameroon & Brussels
Language English, French (English subtitles)
Prizes/Commendations Material Culture Film Prize 2009
Shot in Cameroon and Brussels, Je ne suis pas moi-même examines the complex network surrounding the international market of African antiquities, and the contradictions in a European art market hungry for new tribal objects. Where do the African masks come from? What journey do these masks make before their unveiling in the windows of the biggest galleries or art collections in Europe? Who determines the economic and aesthetic value of these objects now that colonialism is supposedly dead? And then there’s a continent called Africa, in need of economic resources and therefore willing to sell its cultural heritage or, if need be, to fake it. The authenticity of the objects becomes blurred when the people that once adored them start to sell them.