African Cinema: Manifesto and Practice for Cultural Decolonization

Challenging established views and assumptions about traditions and practices of filmmaking in the African diaspora, this three-volume set offers readers a researched critique on black film.

Volume One of this landmark series on African cinema draws together foundational scholarship on its history and evolution. Beginning with the ideological project of colonial film to legitimize the economic exploitation and cultural hegemony of the African continent during imperial rule to its counter-historical formation and theorization. It comprises essays by film scholars and filmmakers alike, among them Roy Armes, Med Hondo, Fèrid Boughedir, Haile Gerima, Oliver Barlet, Teshome Gabriel, and David Murphy, including three distinct dossiers: a timeline of key dates in the history of African cinema; a comprehensive chronicle and account of the contributions by African women in cinema; and a homage and overview of Ousmane Sembène, the "Father" of African cinema.

Dedication
Acknowledgments
African Cinema and the Diasporic: Introductory Considerations, by Michael T. Martin and Gaston Jean-Marie Kaboré
Part I: Colonial Formations
Colonial Cinema, by Roy Armes
The Colonialist Regime of Representation, 1945-1960, by James E. Genova
Politics of Cultural Conversion in Colonialist African Cinema, by Femi Okiremuete Shaka
The African Bioscope: Movie-House Culture in British Colonial Africa, by James Burns
From the Inside: The Colonial Film Unit and the Beginning of the End, by Tom Rice
The Independence Generation: Film Culture and the Anti-Colonial Struggle in the 1950s, by Odile Goerg
Part II: Constituting African Cinema
What Is Cinema for Us?, by Med Hondo
A Cinema Fighting for Its Liberation, by Férid Boughedir
Where Are the African Women Filmmakers?, by Haile Gerima
The FEPACI and Its Artistic Legacies, by Sada Niang
New Avenues for FEPACI: Interview with Seipati Bulane-Hopa, by Monique Mbeka Phoba
The Six Decades of African Film, by Olivier Barlet
Africa, The Last Cinema, by Clyde R. Taylor
The Pan-African Cinema Movement: Achievements, Misadventures, and Failures (1969-2020), by Férid Boughedir
Part III: Theorizing African Cinema
African Cinema(s): Definitions, Identity, and Theoretical Considerations, by Alexie Tcheuyap
Theorizing African Cinema: Contemporary African Cinematic Discourse and Its Discontents, by Esiaba Irobi
The Theoretical Construction of African Cinema, by Stephen A. Zacks
Toward a Critical Theory of Third World Films, by Teshome H. Gabriel
Africans Filming Africa: Questioning Theories of an Authentic African Cinema, by David Murphy
Tradition/Modernity and the Discourse of African Cinema, by Jude Akudinobi
Toward a Theory of Orality in African Cinema, by Keyan G. Tomaselli, Arnold Shepperson, and Maureen N. Eke
Film and the Problem of Languages in Africa, by Paulin Soumanou Vieyra
In Defense of African Film Studies, by Boukary Sawadogo
Part IV: Articulations of African Cinema
Dossier 1: Key Dates in the History of African Cinema, by Olivier Barlet and Claude Forest
Dossier 2: Ousmane Sembène, by Sada Niang and Samba Gadjigo
Dossier 3: African Women in Cinema, by Beti Ellerson