Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment facts for kids

The Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment (BEKE) was a special project from the 1930s that used movies to teach people in parts of Africa. It was a team effort between a group called the International Missionary Council, a big charity organization named the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the British governments that ruled areas like Tanganyika (now Tanzania), Kenya, Uganda, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), and Nyasaland (now Malawi).

What Was the Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment (BEKE)?

The BEKE project aimed to educate local African people, often called "Bantu" at the time, through films shown by mobile cinemas. These cinemas would travel around, bringing movies to different communities.

Why Were These Films Made?

Between 1935 and 1937, about 35 educational films were created for this project. They were made on 16mm film, which was a common size for movies back then. The main idea was to share important information and ideas with people in these African regions. The project ended in 1937 when the funding from the Carnegie Corporation ran out.

Who Led the BEKE Project?

Several key people were in charge of the BEKE project:

• J. Merle Davis: He was a director from the International Missionary Council.
• George Chitty Latham: He used to be in charge of education in Northern Rhodesia.
• Major Leslie Allen Notcutt: He had managed large farms in Kenya before joining the project.

What Were the Films Like?

The movies made by BEKE were mostly silent films, meaning they didn't have spoken dialogue, only music or sound effects. They often had simple stories. Usually, there was a "wise guy" who showed good examples and a "stupid guy" who showed bad habits. The good guy would always win.

Even though some of the actors in the films were African, the way the films were made and the stories they told were very British. They often showed Africa and Africans in a stereotypical way, which means they used oversimplified and sometimes unfair ideas about them.

The films taught about different topics, such as:

• Hygiene: How to stay clean and healthy.
• Cash crop cultivation: How to grow crops like cotton or coffee to sell for money.
• Cooperative marketing: How farmers could work together to sell their crops better.
• "Prestige films": Some movies were made to show the importance and power of British rule and its institutions.

Today, only three of these BEKE films still exist. They are kept safe at the British Film Institute Archives:

• "Veterinary Training of African Natives" (1936)
• "Tropical Hookworm" (1936)
• "African Peasant Farms - the Kingolwira Experiment" (1936)