Cinema and Development in West Africa

Cinema and Development in West Africa PDF Author: James E. Genova
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 025301011X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
“Illuminates the enduring importance of political and economic dynamics not yet fully explored in the study of African cinema.” —Africa Cinema and Development in West Africa shows how the film industry in Francophone West African countries played an important role in executing strategies of nation building during the transition from French rule to the early postcolonial period. James E. Genova sees the construction of African identities and economic development as the major themes in the political literature and cultural production of the time. Focusing on film both as industry and aesthetic genre, he demonstrates its unique place in economic development and provides a comprehensive history of filmmaking in the region during the transition from colonies to sovereign states.

Cinema and Development in West Africa

Cinema and Development in West Africa PDF Author: James E. Genova
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 025301011X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 223

Get Book

Book Description
“Illuminates the enduring importance of political and economic dynamics not yet fully explored in the study of African cinema.” —Africa Cinema and Development in West Africa shows how the film industry in Francophone West African countries played an important role in executing strategies of nation building during the transition from French rule to the early postcolonial period. James E. Genova sees the construction of African identities and economic development as the major themes in the political literature and cultural production of the time. Focusing on film both as industry and aesthetic genre, he demonstrates its unique place in economic development and provides a comprehensive history of filmmaking in the region during the transition from colonies to sovereign states.

Tropical Dream Palaces

Tropical Dream Palaces PDF Author: Odile Goerg
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190089075
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
Many studies focus on film in Africa. Few, however, study cinema as a leisure activity: one that has influenced several generations and opened up spaces to dream, discuss or contest. Movie theatres offered a break from the daily routine, as places of escape and of education. Cinema was also potentially subversive, offering an alternative to colonial discourse. Tropical Dream Palaces seeks to trace this history in a West African context: of broadening horizons on the one hand, and of censorship and control on the other. It fills a historiographic void, following cinema's arrival in the region in the early twentieth century up until the Independence era, and also looking further afield to Central Africa and its different models. Goerg addresses questions of film distribution in colonial times; of screening venues, their implantation, spread and different categories; while also focusing on audiences, their gender or age; the acquisition of a film culture; and the impact of screening foreign images. Her book draws on extremely varied sources to paint a broad picture of this cinematographic landscape: archives, the accounts of African and European spectators or administrators, novels, autobiographies, the local press, interviews and iconography.

Cinema and Development in West Africa

Cinema and Development in West Africa PDF Author: James Genova
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The paper examines the struggle for decolonization in West Africa through the critical lense of the cinema industrial complex. One of the pioneers of African cinema and also a leading anti-colonial cultural activist Paulin Soumanou Vieyra insisted that film should be regarded as a crucial terrain in the fight to end colonial rule as well as a central vehicle in the post-colonial economic and cultural regeneration of Africa's societies. He highlighted the cinema's dual nature as art and industry as providing a unique mix of elements that could be utilized to achieve full sovereignty from foreign rule as well as a pathway for development that was not resource-dependent. Drawn from my forthcoming book of the same title (Indiana, 2013), the paper argues that the representational and materialist dimensions to the cinema industrial complex constituted important modalities of colonial rule that were contested by agents like Vieyra, Ousmane Sembene, Med Hondo, and others in the transition from imperial control to political sovereignty. I argue that this study illuminates some of the possibilities inherent within the project of using film as a means of decolonization while also revealing important structural constraints that limited the potential for Africa's post-colonial cultural and economic development.

New African Cinema

New African Cinema PDF Author: Valérie Orlando
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813579589
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description
New African Cinema examines the pressing social, cultural, economic, and historical issues explored by African filmmakers from the early post-colonial years into the new millennium. Offering an overview of the development of postcolonial African cinema since the 1960s, Valérie K. Orlando highlights the variations in content and themes that reflect the socio-cultural and political environments of filmmakers and the cultures they depict in their films. Orlando illuminates the diverse themes evident in the works of filmmakers such as Ousmane Sembène’s Ceddo (Senegal, 1977), Sarah Maldoror’s Sambizanga (Angola, 1972), Assia Djebar’s La Nouba des femmes de Mont Chenoua (The Circle of women of Mount Chenoua, Algeria, 1978), Zézé Gamboa’s The Hero (Angola, 2004) and Abderrahmane Sissako’s Timbuktu (Mauritania, 2014), among others. Orlando also considers the influence of major African film schools and their traditions, as well as European and American influences on the marketing and distribution of African film. For those familiar with the polemics of African film, or new to them, Orlando offers a cogent analytical approach that is engaging.

Making New People

Making New People PDF Author: James Genova
Publisher: MSU Press
ISBN: 1628954779
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
On August 4, 1983, Captain Thomas Sankara led a coalition of radical military officers, communist activists, labor leaders, and militant students to overtake the government of the Republic of Upper Volta. Almost immediately following the coup’s success, the small West African country—renamed Burkina Faso, or Land of the Dignified People—gained international attention as it charted a new path toward social, economic, cultural, and political development based on its people’s needs rather than external pressures and Cold War politics. James E. Genova’s Making New People: Politics, Cinema, and Liberation in Burkina Faso, 1983–1987 recounts in detail the revolutionary government’s rise and fall, demonstrating how it embodied the critical transition period in modern African history between the era of decolonization and the dawning of neoliberal capitalism. It also uncovers one of the revolution’s most enduring and significant aspects: its promotion of film as a vehicle for raising the people’s consciousness, inspiring their efforts at social transformation, and articulating a new self-generated image of Africa and Africans. Foregrounding film and drawing evocative connections between Sankara’s political philosophy and Frantz Fanon, Making New People provides a deeply nuanced explanation for the revolution’s lasting influence throughout Africa and the world.

Postcolonial African cinema

Postcolonial African cinema PDF Author: David Murphy
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526141736
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
This is the first introduction of its kind to an important cross-section of postcolonial African filmmakers from the 1950s to the present. Building on previous critical work in the field, this volume will bring together ideas from a range of disciplines – film studies, African cultural studies, and, in particular, postcolonial studies – in order to combine the in-depth analysis of individual films and bodies of work by individual directors with a sustained interrogation of these films in relation to important theoretical concepts. Structurally, the book is straightforward, though the aim is to incorporate diversity and complexity of approach within the overall simplicity of format. Chapters provide both an overview of the director’s output to date, and the necessary background – personal or national, cultural or political – to enable readers to achieve a better understanding of the director’s choice of subject matter, aesthetic or formal strategies, or ideological stance. They also offer a particular reading of one or more films, in which the authors aim to situate African cinema in relation to important critical and theoretical debates. This book thus constitutes a new departure in African film studies, recognising the maturity of the field, and the need for complex yet accessible approaches to it, which move beyond the purely descriptive while refusing to get bogged down in theoretical jargon. Consequently, the volume should be of interest not only to specialists but also to the general reader.

Culture and Development in Africa

Culture and Development in Africa PDF Author: Stephen H. Arnold
Publisher: Trenton, N.J. : African World Press
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description


Instructional Cinema and African Audiences in Colonial Kenya, 1926–1963

Instructional Cinema and African Audiences in Colonial Kenya, 1926–1963 PDF Author: Samson Kaunga Ndanyi
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793649251
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 167

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Book Description
This book argues that African film audiences in colonial Kenya were not passive recipients of British cultural programs created to “teach” and “civilize” them. Rather, they rejected mediocre films and actively participated in the cinema discourse that brought about changes in cinema production.

African Cinema: Manifesto and Practice for Cultural Decolonization

African Cinema: Manifesto and Practice for Cultural Decolonization PDF Author: Michael T. Martin
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253066220
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 637

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Book Description
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.

African Film Studies

African Film Studies PDF Author: Boukary Sawadogo
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000821692
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 135

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Book Description
African Film Studies is an accessible and engaging introduction to African cinemas, showcasing the diverse cinematic expressions across the continent. Bringing African cinemas out of the margins and into mainstream film studies, the book provides a succinct overview of the history, aesthetics, and theory of sub-Saharan African cinematic productions. Updated throughout, this new edition includes new chapters on Nollywood, Ethiopian cinema, Streaming, and the rise of televisual series, which serve to complement the book’s main themes: Overview of African cinema(s): Questions assumptions and defines the characteristics of African cinemas across linguistic, geographic, and filmic divides History of African cinemas: Spans the history of film in Africa from colonial import and ‘appropriation of the gaze’, the rise of Nollywood and local TV series to streaming, as well as building connections with the development of African American cinema Aesthetics: Introduces new research on previously under-explored aesthetic dimensions such as cinematography, animation, and film music Theoretical Approaches: Addresses a number of theoretical approaches and critical frameworks developed by scholars in the study of African cinemas Traditions and practices in African screen media: Features Ethiopian cinema, Nollywood, Local Televisual Series in Burkina Faso and South Africa, and the Streaming rush for Africa All chapters include case studies, suggestions for further reading, and screening lists to deepen the reader’s knowledge, with no prior knowledge of African cinemas required. Students, teachers, and general film enthusiasts would all benefit from this accessible and engaging book.