For more than ten years, there was no movie theater in Equatorial Guinea…

Film buffs of the Seventh Art have had to wait until May 1st to be able to go to a movie theater in Malabo, where the Rial Cinema has opened in the residential quarter of Buena Esperanza, not far from the city of Sipopo.

It had been a bit over ten years since there was a movie theater in Equatorial Guinea, ever since the Ivoire Cinema, on Rey Malabo street, closed down and was converted into a church; and the Mar Cinema, now in ruins in the Ela Nguema neighborhood, disappeared. The youngest sector of the population does not know what a cinema is.

The inaugural ceremony was held in the presence of the Governor of North Bioko Province, Baltasar Nseng Mesian, as well as numerous artists (Mixes Choir of Malabo, Pina Bessosa, Abong Mang de Paraíso, Elenita, Manu de Mirey, Éroes de Bonda).

With this movie theater, the public in the capital now has access to 300 hundred square meters (2,000 square feet), perfectly furnished and air-conditioned, distributed on two floors and with a seating capacity for 280. They will screen two films every day, including weekends, with an entrance fee of 5,000 F Cfa on weekdays and 10,000 F Cfa (15-16 euros) on weekends.

Some people remember that, in the nineties, a movie ticket for the Ivoire and Mar movie theaters was of only 1,000 F Cfa, sometimes even as low as 500 FCfa, and that allowed the whole family to come. With a ticket nowadays costing between 5,000 and 10,000 F Cfa, that is completely unviable. No one’s income or salary can afford such an expenditure, and many find regrettable that films should be only for the rich.

On his side, the director of the Rial Cinema, Hermegildo Biong Mabale, has voiced his wish that this new place of leisure be occupied by young people in Equatorial Guinea, thereby contributing to diminishing delinquency and alcoholism among young people in the capital. (Source: malabosa.com)

by Guillermina Mekuy Mba Obono

Guillermina Mekuy Mba Obono is the director of the National Library. The daughter of a diplomat and educated in Spain, Guillermina Mekuy Mba Obono is in charge of Cultural Affairs in the Equatorial – Guinean Government. She has just published her third novel.

She is only 28 years old, but she already has a full and prestigious career. Named director of the National Library in 2009 – then still being created, it was inaugurated in June of that same year – she was promoted just a few months later to Secretary of State for Libraries, Archives, Museums and Cinemas. Summing it up, Guillermina Mekuy Mba Obono heads all cultural affairs. A job for which she has considerable assets: to begin with, her youth, which should make her more sensitive to all forms of artistic and cultural creation; and next, her awareness of what is happening in the world.

Born in Evinyaong, the administrative center of the Centro-Sur province, in the continental part of the country, she is the daughter of diplomat Luis Mba Ndong Andeme and has lived in Spain since she was six years of age. That is where she studied, landing a degree in Law and another one in Political Sciences at the Autonomous University of Madrid, as well as later getting a third degree in Sociology (by correspondence) when she returned to Equatorial Guinea.

PARTIALITY FOR WRITING

Another of her assets is her penchant for writing. Charismatic Guillermina Mekuy is a writer of novels. And she has already published three books in Spain, showing a partiality for the subject of women and the oppressions they are often the victims of. The first one, “El llanto de la perra” (The Cry of the Dog), was published when she was only 21 years old. The last one, “Tres almas para un corazón” (Three Souls for a Heart), is fresh off the press about polygamy, a sensitive subject, it has already caused quite a stir.

The appointment of a writer to the post of Secretary of State is a chance that should not be wasted in a country where books are practically rare objects. A fact that Guillermina Mekuy Mba Obono intends to change by favoring the promotion of libraries and reading. Her project to create a publishing house is part of this plan.

However, this young woman is also passionate about cinema. She hopes to create a National Film School and has co-organised, alongside the Spanish Cultural Center in Malabo, the African Film Festival in Equatorial Guinea, now celebrating its second edition. She is also the author of the screenplay of the medium length film, Teresa, adapted from a true story and produced by the National Library.

LENDING VALUE TO CULTURAL PATRIMONY

Very attached to the cultural patrimony and the history of her country, she has thrown herself into the project of creating a digital archive body. Last February, she signed an agreement project with the Spanish Sub- Secretary of Culture, Mercedes de Palacio Tascón, that will permit the National Library of Equatorial Guinea to receive digital reproductions of those documents with a common history between the two countries, and kept in the public Spanish archives. This determination to revitalize Equatorial Guinea’s history is accompanied by a wish to breathe new life into cultural identity, on the downslide, especially in the big cities. That is why she places the accent on returning to the “origins”, promoting dance and traditional music companies, such as the Ceiba National Ballet that participated in the World Festival of Black Arts in Dakar in December of 2010. Under her leadership, culture should take on a new energy. A symbol of these new dynamics that the authorities wish to promote is the reopening, scheduled for June in Malabo, of the Equatorial-Guinean Cultural Center, after having been completely refurbished and equipped with the latest apparatus.

Extracted from articles on Jeuneafrique.com : Guinée équatoriale: sur le devant de la scène | Guillermina Mekuy Mba Obono, une femme de tête | Jeuneafrique.com le premier site d’information et d’actualité sur l’Afrique

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

Composed of a mainland portion and five inhabited islands, Equatorial Guinea, which gained independence in 1968 after 190 years of Spanish rule, has been ruled by President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo since he seized power in a coup in 1979. Although nominally a constitutional democracy since 1991, the 1996 presidential and 1999 legislative elections were widely seen as being flawed.

HISTORY OF CINEMA FROM 1896-2000

The film industry in Equatorial Guinea is practically non-existent at the moment. No recent filmmakers of international repute have come from the country so far. Although the country houses a few cinemas, the only news worth mentioning is an assassination in the surroundings of a cinema. Another film related piece of information considered Rafael Ekiri Obama, a local who visited Germany and bought some screening equipment. He apparently vanished while he was setting up his projector in an old cinema building. Equatorial Guinea is multi-lingual, Spanish, French, English and some African languages. Being impoverished and in a constant state of military restlessness, developing a cinema to preserve and maintain cultural heritage has thus far not been possible.