Focus on African Films

Front Cover
Françoise Pfaff
Indiana University Press, Jul 13, 2004 - Performing Arts - 327 pages

Emphasizing post-independent films released since the 1950s and the burgeoning commercial film production of the last decade, Focus on African Films provides unique and pluralistic perspectives on filmmaking throughout Africa. As a whole, the collection highlights the distinct thematic, stylistic, and socioeconomic circumstances of African filmmaking. Individual essays show how conditions in Africa have generated a broad range of views and techniques, from the stylistically innovative documentaries of Jean-Marie Teno and Abderrahmane Sissako and the "documentary fiction" of Mahamat-Saleh Haroun to the vibrant art films of Jean-Pierre Bekolo and the new films from South Africa. Contributors also outline the direction of increasingly popular, less didactic sub-Saharan filmmaking in films such as Daniel Kamwa's Pousse-Pousse, Ngangura Mweze's La vie est belle, and Imungu Ivanga's Dôlé. Up-to-date and richly informative, Focus on African Films will be essential reading for students and scholars of African film.

Contributors are Françoise Balogun, Brenda F. Berrian, Robert Cancel, Mbye Cham, Madeleine Cottenet-Hage, Beti Ellerson, Samba Gadjigo, Josef Gugler, Kenneth W. Harrow, Françoise Pfaff, María Roof, N. Frank Ukadike, Valerie Wheat, and Josephine Woll.

 

Contents

Introduction
11
Come Back South Africa Cinematic Representations of Apartheid over Three Eras of Resistance
15
Ousmane Sembene and History on the Screen A Look Back to the Future
33
Film and History in Africa A Critical Survey of Current Trends and Tendencies
48
Fiction Fact and the Critics Responsibility Camp de Thiaroye Yaaba and The Gods Must Be Crazy
69
African Cities as Cinematic Texts
89
Images of France in Francophone African Films 19781998
107
The Failed Trickster
124
Booming Videoeconomy The Case of Nigeria
173
Africa through a Womans Eyes Safi Fayes Cinema
185
From Africa to the Americas Interviews with Haile Gerima 19762001
203
The Russian Connection Soviet Cinema and the Cinema of Francophone Africa
223
African and Latin American Cinemas Contexts and Contacts
241
Where to View Rent and Purchase African Feature Films Africa Europe the United States and Canada
273
Suggestions for Further Reading
305
Contributors
307

Manu Dibango and Ceddos Transatlantic Soundscape
143
The Other Voices of Documentary Allah Tantou and Afrique je te plumerai
159

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About the author (2004)

Françoise Pfaff is Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Howard University, where she teaches courses on literature and film from France, West Africa, and the Caribbean.

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