Join us for a film screening and discussion presented in conjunction with the 2023 African Studies Association Conference

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COCONUT HEAD GENERATION (2023, 89 mins)

Every Thursday, a group of students from the University of Ibadan, the oldest in Nigeria, organizes a film club, transforming a small lecture hall into a political agora where they develop a critical voice. "Coconut Head Generation," a scornful expression to designate a stubborn and brainless youth, takes on a whole new meaning when the students turn this stigma around to claim their freedom of thought.

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Following the screening, we will host a discussion with the filmmaker Alain Kassanda and student participant Leye Komolafe, moderated by Amina Mama.

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Don't miss a screening of Alain Kassanda's award-winning documentary COLETTE AND JUSTIN at BAMPFA as part of their African Film Festival 2023 on November 16!

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Born in Kinshasa, Alain Kassanda left the DRC for France at the age of 11. After studying communication, he has been staging cycles of movie showings in various Parisian theaters. He then became the programmer of an art house cinema for five years, in the suburbs of Paris, before moving to Ibadan, in southwestern Nigeria, from 2015 to 2019.

There he directed Trouble Sleep, a medium-length film centered on the road, depicted from the perspectives of a taxi driver and a tax collector. The film received the Golden Dove for best film at the Dok Leipzig festival in 2020 and the special mention of the jury at the Visions du réel festival. This was followed by Colette and Justin, a feature film intertwining his family history and the history of the decolonization of the Congo. The film was part of the international competition at Idfa in 2022. Coconut Head Generation is his third film.

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Leye Komolafe is a legal and political philosophy researcher. As an advocate of non-intrusive autonomy, he is involved in actions and thoughts against oppressive systems and the state’s overreaching demobilization of individual agency. In 2016, while studying for a master’s degree in philosophy at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, he became an active member, and later, co-coordinator of the Thursday Film Series (TFS),a club composed of film enthusiasts and interlocutors on nuanced and alternative thoughts in social and historical discourses. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. On some evenings, he could be caught having vigorous discussions with friends in the presence of a frothing glass of beer.

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Amina Mama is an anti-colonial feminist professor based at the Dept of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at the University of California, Davis. A transdisciplinary feminist educator, researcher and organizer, Mama’s most influential books include The Hidden Struggle: Statutory and Voluntary Sector Responses to Black Women and Domestic Violence in London (Runnymede Trust 1989); Beyond the Masks: Race, Gender and Subjectivity (Routledge 1995);  and Engendering African Social Sciences (co-edited with Fatou Sow and Ayesha Imam, CODESRIA 1997). She has over 30 years of experience in teaching and policy advice in Africa, Europe and the USA. Her most prestigious appointments have included the Prince Claus Chair in Development and Equity at University of Utrecht (2004), the Barbara Lee Distinguished Chair at Mill’s College (2007-2009), the Angela Davis Guest Professor in Social Justice at the Cornelia Goethe Centre, University of Frankfurt (2016), and the Kwame Nkrumah Chair in African Studies at the University of Ghana (2020-2022). She co-produced two documentaries The Witches of Gambaga 2011, and The Art of Ama Ata Aidoo 2014, both with filmmaker Yaba Badoe. Amina continues to pursue her interests through writing, collaborative action-research, documentation and film projects.

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ASA Attendees need only to show their badges for admission to the program.

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