Thérèse Sita-Bella
Thérèse Sita-Bella (1933–27 February 2006), born Thérèse Bella Mbida, was a Cameroonian filmmaker and pilot, and Cameroon's first female journalist.
Biography
She was born into the Beti tribe in southern Cameroon, and received her education from Catholic missionaries. In the 1950s, after obtaining her baccalaureate from a school in the Cameroonian capital of Yaoundé, she went to Paris in order to continue her studies. It was in France that her interest in journalism and in film developed. She returned to Cameroon at the beginning of the 1960s.
In 1963, she created the documentary Tam-Tam à Paris, which followed a troupe from the National Dance Company of Cameroon during a tour of Paris.[1] It is frequently cited as being the first film by a woman from sub-Saharan Africa.[2] In 1969, Tam Tam à Paris featured at the first Week of African Cinema, a festival taht was later to become known as FESPACO.
A feminist who blazed a trail for many other Cameroonian and African women of her generation, she was considered an oddity by the male-dominated system she both defied and worked to become a part of. She once stated:
"Camerawomen in the 1970s? At that time we were very few. There were few West Indians, a woman from Senegal called Safi Faye and I. But you know cinema is not a woman's business".[3]
Sita-Bella died on 27 February 2006, following her admission to hospital. She had been suffering from cancer of the colon, and her death was caused by complications of an operation that had hoped to remove the tumour.[4] Sita-Bella was buried at the Mvolye cemetery in Yaoundé.
Notes
References
- DeLancey, Mark W., and Mark Dike DeLancey (2000): Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Cameroon (3rd ed.). Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press.
- Pallister, Janis L. (1997). French-Speaking Women Film Directors: A Guide. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.