[AFRICAN MOVIE SCREENINGS] AYA OF YOP CITY (AYA DE YOUPOUGON)

The University Museum and Art Gallery of the University of Hong Kong is pleased to collaborate with Alliance Française de Hong Kong and with the support of Institute Français on presenting this cinematic outreach programme to complement the exhibition Colours of Congo: Patterns, Symbols and Narratives in 20th-Century Congolese Paintings.

Highlighting the contemporary struggles of individuals across the continent, this series of African films presents a broad array of people working to achieve their beliefs and dreams while searching for their own distinct identities. Throughout these works, the vibrant lens of African cinema shatters the colonialist perspectives that have long masked Africa’s inherent beauty.

Date: Wednesday, 21 April 2021

Time: 1:00pm

Duration: 84 mins

Venue: 1/F T.T. Tsui Building, 90 Bonham Road, University Museum and Art Gallery, HKU (Please enter the museum via the Fung Ping Shan Building.)

Audience: Age 18 or above for screenings

Limit: 32 for screenings

Cost: Free admission. No walk-ins are allowed. Please click here to register.

Title of the movie: Aya of Yop City (Aya de Youpougon)

Animation

Côte d’Ivoire

2013

In French with English subtitles

Directed by Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie

In the Yopougo neighbourhood of the Ivory Coast, the dream of every working-class girl is to marry a rich man and start a family. But nineteen-year-old Aya has more ambitious plans. She wants to be a doctor, despite her father’s opposition and the challenges facing women in West African townships in the 1970s. In the story, we follow Anya and her friends Bintou and Adjoua as they navigate life under the warm sun of Yopougon, each struggling to make their dreams a reality.

Colours of Congo: Patterns, Symbols and Narratives in 20th-Century Congolese Paintings displays a selection of Congolese work created from the 1920s to 1960.

Thanks to unprecedented access to extensive archives and art collections, the exhibition’s narrative presents a generous overview of paintings that were instigated when a single artist from Belgium began a painting workshop so as to collaborate with the indigenous population of Elisabethville (modern-day Lubumbashi). This first studio was followed by other workshops that assisted in developing a hybrid artform that remains a celebrated phenomenon.

Alliance Française de Hong Kong (AFHK) is a Hong Kong not-for-profit association dedicated to the promotion of the French language and culture. It is the official and largest language institution for French in Hong Kong and Asia, with the mission to encourage and promote active connections between people in Hong Kong and French language and culture. It provides the means by which people can learn the French language and engage in many different aspects of French culture.

The University Museum and Art Gallery of the University of Hong Kong Kong was founded in 1953 as the Fung Ping Shan Museum. It is the oldest continuously operated museum in Hong Kong, and over the past sixty years has built up a diverse collection of ceramics and bronzes dating from the Neolithic period to the Qing dynasty, as well as traditional and modern paintings and works on paper from the Ming to the twenty-first century. In addition to these permanent collections, UMAG regularly hosts exhibitions of contemporary and ancient Chinese and Western art, and on early Hong Kong history.

Other Screening Titles:

Twenty years of African cinema (Caméra d’Afrique, 20 ans de cinéma africain)

Timbuktu

Dem Dem!

Pépé le Moko

The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun (La Petite Vendeuse de soleil)

Please click here for the leaflet.