Focus On African Films

Author : Françoise Pfaff
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780253216687
Total Pages : 344 pages
Book Rating : 4.80/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Focus on African Films written by Françoise Pfaff and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2004-07-13 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Focus on African Films' offers pluralistic perspectives on filmmaking across Africa, highlighting the distinct thematic, stylistic, and socioeconomic circumstances of African film production.

Author : Manthia Diawara
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780253207074
Total Pages : 212 pages
Book Rating : 4.7X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book African Cinema written by Manthia Diawara and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1992-04-22 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Manthia Diawara provides an insider's account of the history and current status of African cinema. African Cinema: Politics and Culture is the first extended study in English of Sub-Saharan cinema. Employing an interdisciplinary approach which draws on history, political science, economics, and cultural studies, Diawara discusses such issues as film production and distribution, and film aesthetics from the colonial period to the present. The book traces the growth of African cinema through the efforts of pioneer filmmakers such as Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, Oumarou Ganda, Jean-René Débrix, Jean Rouch, and Ousmane Sembène, the Pan-African Filmmakers' Organization (FEPACI), and the Ougadougou Pan-African Film Festival (FESPACO). Diwara focuses on the production and distribution histories of key films such as Ousmane Sembène's Black Girl and Mandabi (1968) and Souleymane Cissé's Fine (1982). He also examines the role of missionary films in Africa, Débrix's ideas concerning 'magic, ' the links between Yoruba theater and Nigerian cinema, and the parallels between Hindu mythologicals in India and the Yoruba-theater - inflected films in Nigeria. Diawara also looks at film and nationalism, film and popular culture, and the importance of FESPACO. African Cinema: Politics and Culture makes a major contribution to the expanding discussion of Eurocentrism, the canon, and multi-culturalism.

Author : James S. Williams
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350105058
Total Pages : 376 pages
Book Rating : 4.58/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ethics and Aesthetics in Contemporary African Cinema written by James S. Williams and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-03-21 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the beginnings of African cinema, the realm of beauty on screen has been treated with suspicion by directors and critics alike. James S. Williams explores an exciting new generation of African directors, including Abderrahmane Sissako, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Fanta Régina Nacro, Alain Gomis, Newton I. Aduaka, Jean-Pierre Bekolo and Mati Diop, who have begun to reassess and embrace the concept of cinematic beauty by not reducing it to ideological critique or the old ideals of pan-Africanism. Locating the aesthetic within a range of critical fields - the rupturing of narrative spectacle and violence by montage, the archives of the everyday in the 'afropolis', the plurivocal mysteries of sound and language, male intimacy and desire, the borderzones of migration and transcultural drift - this study reveals the possibility for new, non-conceptual kinds of beauty in African cinema: abstract, material, migrant, erotic, convulsive, queer. Through close readings of key works such as Life on Earth (1998), The Night of Truth (2004), Bamako (2006), Daratt (Dry Season) (2006), A Screaming Man (2010), Tey (Today) (2012), The Pirogue (2012), Mille soleils (2013) and Timbuktu (2014), Williams argues that contemporary African filmmakers are proposing propitious, ethical forms of relationality and intersubjectivity. These stimulate new modes of cultural resistance and transformation that serve to redefine the transnational and the cosmopolitan as well as the very notion of the political in postcolonial art cinema.

Author : Paulo de Medeiros
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 042964891X
Total Pages : 237 pages
Book Rating : 4.15/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Contemporary Lusophone African Film written by Paulo de Medeiros and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-12-13 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering a range of critical perspectives on a vibrant body of films, this collection of essays engages with questions specific to the various cinemas and films addressed while putting forward an argument for their inclusion in current debates on world cinema. The collection brings together 11 chapters by recognized scholars, who analyze a variety of films and videos from Angola, Cape Verde, Guiné-Bissau, and Mozambique. It also includes an interview with Pedro Pimenta, one of the most distinguished African film festival organizers. Drawing on various theoretical perspectives, the volume strives to reverse the relative invisibility that has afflicted these cinemas, arguing that most, if not all, Lusophone films are transnational in all aspects of production, acting, and reception. The initial three chapters sketch broad, comparative overviews and suggest theoretical approaches, while the ensuing chapters focus on specific case studies and discuss a number of key issues such as the convergence of film with politics, the question of gender and violence, as well as the revisiting of the period immediately following independence. Attention is given to fiction, documentary films and recent, short, alternative video productions that are overlooked by more traditional channels. The book stresses the need to pay attention to the significance of African film, and Lusophone African film in particular, within the developing field of world cinema. Bringing together general overviews, historical considerations, detailed case studies, and focused theoretical reflections, this book is a significant volume for students and researchers in film studies, especially African, Lusophone cultural studies, and world cinema.

Author : Amadou Tidiane Fofana
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781604978315
Total Pages : 301 pages
Book Rating : 4.17/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Films of Ousmane Sembène written by Amadou Tidiane Fofana and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ousmane Sembene was a Senegalese film director, producer, and writer whom the Los Angeles Times considered one of the greatest authors of Africa. Often called the "father of African film," Sembene strongly believed that African films should be geared primarily toward educating the masses and making the philosophical quandaries and political issues contested by elites accessible to the poor and those with little to no formal education.Although Sembene's central aim was to reach African audiences and encourage a dialogue within Senegalese society, his films are also extraordinarily effective in introducing non-African audiences to many of the most intriguing cultural issues and social changes facing African people today. The films are not fast paced in the manner of many Hollywood films. Rather, they are deliberately unhurried and driven by the narrative. They show actual ways of life, social relations, and patterns of communication and consumption, and the joys and tribulations of West African people. For people who have never been to Africa, the films offer an accessible first gaze. For those who have visited or lived in an African culture, the films provide a way to explore African society and culture more profoundly. Sembene was an independent filmmaker, solely and totally responsible for the content of his films, which were inspired by the realities of daily life. This focus on microcosmic social relations and day-to-day politics is so central to Sembene art, his films breed provocative commentary on social, historical, political, economic, linguistic, religious, and gender issues relevant to Senegalese society. Because of his concern with daily Senegalese life, Sembene targeted the common people whose voices are seldom or never heard. In fact, depicting the struggles and concerns of average Senegalese people was a central preoccupation of his films, as he himself has articulated. This study examines the artistry of Sembene's films as well as the multitude of signifying elements Sembene uses in them to communicate in less direct ways with his audience. The book interprets the meaning conveyed by images through their placement and function within the films, and it contributes new insights into Sembene's interpretations of cultural practices and the meanings he ascribes to social behaviors. It examines how Sembene uses language, mise-en-scene, cinematography, and creative editing to evoke the emotions of his targeted audience. Several chapters in the volume also demonstrate how the many ironies and political economic tensions that are so characteristic of Sembene's work are best understood within the sociocultural context of each film's production. Hence, to make sense of Sembene's cinema, one must be willing to read beyond the denoted meaning of the storyline and to dig into the cultural significance of the carefully selected and manipulated codes and images.

Author : David Murphy
Publisher : Manchester University Press
ISBN 13 : 1526141736
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.36/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Postcolonial African cinema written by David Murphy and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-04 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Author : Kenneth W. Harrow
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1119100313
Total Pages : 512 pages
Book Rating : 4.17/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Companion to African Cinema written by Kenneth W. Harrow and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2018-12-27 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative guide to African cinema with contributions from a team of experts on the topic A Companion to African Cinema offers an overview of critical approaches to African cinema. With contributions from an international panel of experts, the Companion approaches the topic through the lens of cultural studies, contemporary transformations in the world order, the rise of globalization, film production, distribution, and exhibition. This volume represents a new approach to African cinema criticism that once stressed the sociological and sociopolitical aspects of a film. The text explores a wide range of broad topics including: cinematic economics, video movies, life in cinematic urban Africa, reframing human rights, as well as more targeted topics such as the linguistic domestication of Indian films in the Hausa language and the importance of female African filmmakers and their successes in overcoming limitations caused by gender inequality. The book also highlights a comparative perspective of African videoscapes of Southern Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Côte d’Ivoire and explores the rise of Nairobi-based Female Filmmakers. This important resource: Puts the focus on critical analyses that take into account manifestations of the political changes brought by neocolonialism and the waning of the cold war Explores Examines the urgent questions raised by commercial video about globalization Addresses issues such as funding, the acquisition of adequate production technologies and apparatuses, and the development of adequately trained actors Written for film students and scholars, A Companion to African Cinema offers a look at new critical approaches to African cinema.

Author : Jyoti Mistry
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 1868148572
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.78/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Gaze Regimes written by Jyoti Mistry and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2015-06-01 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gaze Regimes is a bricolage of essays and interviews showcasing the experiences of women working in film, either directly as practitioners or in other areas as curators, festival programme directors or fundraisers. It does not shy away from questioning the relations of power in the practice of filmmaking and the power invested in the gaze itself. Who is looking and who is being looked at, who is telling women’s stories in Africa and what governs the mechanics of making those films on the continent? The interviews with film practitioners such as Tsitsi Dangarembga, Taghreed Elsanhouri, Jihan El-Tahri, Anita Khanna, Isabel Noronhe, Arya Lalloo and Shannon Walsh demonstrate the contradictory points of departure of women in film – from their understanding of feminisms in relation to lived-experiences and the realpolitik of women working as cultural practitioners. The disciplines of gender studies, postcolonial theory, and film theory provide the framework for the book’s essays. Jyoti Mistry, Antje Schuhmann, Nobunye Levin, Dorothee Wenner and Christina von Braun are some of the contributors who provide valuable context, analysis and insight into, among other things, the politics of representation, the role of film festivals and the collective and individual experiences of trauma and marginality which contribute to the layered and complex filmic responses of Africa’s film practitioners.

Author : Keyan Tomaselli
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317928407
Total Pages : 302 pages
Book Rating : 4.09/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Cinema of Apartheid written by Keyan Tomaselli and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-12-13 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study analyses the historical development of South African cinema up to he book's original publication in 1988. It describes the films and comments on their relationship to South African realities, addressing all aspects of the industry, focusing on domestic production, but also discussing international film companies who use South Africa as a location. It explores tensions between English-language and Afrikaans-language films, and between films made for blacks and films made for whites. Going behind the scenes the author looks at the financial infrastructure, the marketing strategies, and the works habits of the film industry. He concludes with a discussion of independent filmmaking, the obstacles facing South Africans who want to make films with artistic and political integrity, and the possibilities of progress in the future. Includes comprehensive bibliography and filmography listing all feature films made in South Africa between 1910 and 1985 together with documentary films by South Africans, non-South Africans, and exiles about the country.

Author : Kenneth W. Harrow
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000938131
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.35/5 ( download)

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Download or read book African Cinema in a Global Age written by Kenneth W. Harrow and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-09-19 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book traces the developments in African films that were made from the 1990s to the present within the evolving frame of what came to be called ‘World Cinema’ and, eventually, ‘Global Cinema.’ Kenneth W. Harrow explores how, from the time video and then digital technologies were introduced in the 1990s, and then again, when streaming platforms assumed major roles in producing and distributing film between the 2010s and 2020s, African cinema underwent enormous changes. He highlights how the introduction of the continent’s first successful commercial cinema, Nollywood, shifted the focus from engagé films, with social or political messages, to entertainment movies, but also auteur cinema. Harrow explores how this transformation liberated African filmmakers and resulted in an incredible, enduring flow of creative, inventive, and thoughtful filmmaking. This book presents a number of those critical films that mark that trajectory, projecting a new sense of African film spaces and temporalities, while also highlighting how African films continue to find independent pathways. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of African cinema and world cinema, as well as researchers specifically examining African cinemas and their relationship to globalization.