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.
Michael T. Martin is Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at the Media School at Indiana University Bloomington. He is editor or coeditor of several anthologies, including (with David C. Wall) The Politics and Poetics of Black Film: Nothing But a Man and Race and the Revolutionary Impulse in The Spook Who Sat by the Door. Martin directed and coproduced the award-winning feature documentary on Nicaragua, In the Absence of Peace, distributed by Third World Newsreel. Gaston Jean-Marie Kaboré is a film director, producer, and screenwriter and the former director of the Centre National du Cinéma in Burkina Faso.