Cameroon / 2024 / 31mins / Documentary / French

An anonymous grave between those of her parents, a dilapidated cinema on the premises of the Ministry of Arts and Culture: these are the signs of Sita Bella's passage on earth. Yet she was the first female journalist, the first female pilot in Cameroon, one of the first African filmmakers whose film "Tam Tam à Paris" was selected for the first edition of FESPACO in 1969.
Paying tribute to this exceptional woman is the challenge of this first work by a young director, Eugénie Metala, mentored by Jean Marie Teno.

Jean-Marie Téno

Jean-Marie Téno, Africa’s preeminent documentary filmmaker, has been producing and directing films on the colonial and post-colonial history of Africa for over twenty years. Films by Jean-Marie have been honored at festivals worldwide. He has been a guest of the Flaherty Seminar, an artist in residence and has lectured at many universities. Jean-Marie was born in 1954 in Bandjoun, Cameroon. He studied audiovisual communication at the University of Valenciennes and worked as a film critic for Bwana Magazine and as editor-in-chief at France 3. In 1983, he directed his first short documentary Schubbah. In 1992, he made his documentary Africa, I Will Pluck You Clean on the effects of colonialism and neocolonialism in Cameroon. In 1996, he made Clando, which won the Audience Award at the 6th African Film Festival in Milan, Italy. Jean-Marie Teno is also a producer of his own films with Les Films du Raphia. From 2007 - 2008, he was a Visiting Artist at Copeland Fellow at Amherst College, and in 2009 - 2010 he was visiting Professor at Hampshire College, Massachusetts. He lives between France, Cameroon and the United States. Learn More

Eugenie Metala

Eugenie Metala is an editor and director who, studied literature. She took workshops in documentary film, at the end of which she co-directed her 1st short documentary in 2021 and in 2023 the Heritage workshop enabled her to make the short film: “Sita Bella, the First”. Learn More