Companion to African Cinema

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.

Kenneth W. Harrow is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at Michigan State University with specializations in African literature and cinema. He has taught in the Université de Yaounde, Cameroon and l'Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, Senegal.

Carmela Garritano is Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Film Studies at Texas A&M University. Her research has been supported by Fulbright IIE and the West African Research Association.