Postcolonial African cinema

Ten directors

David Murphy, Patrick Williams

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780719072031
  9780719072024
• eBook ISBN:
  9781526141736
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

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.

Table of contents

• Front matter
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Availability of African films
• Introduction: Representing postcolonial African cinema
• Youssef Chahine
• Ousmane Sembene
• Med Hondo
• Djibril Diop Mambety
• Souleymane Cissé
• Flora Gomes
• Idrissa Ouédraogo
• Moufida Tlatli
• Jean-Pierre Bekolo
• Darrell James Roodt
• Bibliography
• Index