AFRICAN CINEMA

African cinema is film production in Africa. It dates back to the

early 20th century, when film reels were the primary cinematic
technology in use. The Nigerian film industry is the largest in
Africa in terms of value, number of annual films, revenue and
popularity.[1][2] It is also the second and third largest national film
industry in the world, based on the number of annual films [2]
and revenue respectively.

 During the colonial era, Africa was represented

exclusively by Western filmmakers. The continent was
portrayed as an exotic land without history or culture.
Examples of this kind of cinema abound and include
jungle epics based on the Tarzan character created by
Edgar Rice Burroughs and the adventure film
The African Queen (1951), and various adaptations of
H. Rider Haggard's novel King Solomon's Mines (1885).
[4] In the mid-1930s, the Bantu Educational Kinema
Experiment was conducted in order to educate the
Bantu.[5]
Egyptian actor Emad Hamdy in a scene from Faten
Hamama (1962).

 In the French colonies Africans were

legally prohibited ("Laval Decree")
from making films of their own.[6] The
ban stunted the growth of film as a
means for Africans to express
themselves politically, culturally, and
artistically.[7] In 1955,

 In 1955, however, Paulin Soumanou

Vieyra originally from Benin, but
educated in Senegal along with his
colleagues from Le Group Africain du
Cinema, shot a short film in Paris by
the name of Afrique Sur Seine
(1955). Vieyra was trained in
filmmaking at the Institut des hautes

 Before independence, only a few

anti-colonial films were produced.
Examples include Les statues
meurent aussi by Chris Marker and
Alain Resnais about European
robbery of African art (which for 10
years was banned by the French[10])
and Afrique 50 by Ren Vautier about
anti-colonial riots in Cte d'Ivoire and
in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso

 Rouch made documentaries that were not

explicitly anti-colonial, but challenged
perceptions about colonial Africa and gave a
new voice to Africans through film. [12] Although
Rouch has been accused by Ousmane
Sembene and others[13] of being someone
who looks at Africans "as if they are insects,"
Rouch was an important figure in the
developing field of African film and was the
first person to work with Africans who would
have important careers in African cinema

 Rouch made documentaries that were not

explicitly anti-colonial, but challenged
perceptions about colonial Africa and gave a new
voice to Africans through film.[12] Although Rouch
has been accused by Ousmane Sembene and
others[13] of being someone who looks at
Africans "as if they are insects," Rouch was an
important figure in the developing field of African
film and was the first person to work with
Africans who would have important careers in
African cinema (Oumarou Ganda, Safi Faye and

 Most of the films prior to

independence were egregiously
racist in nature, African filmmakers of
the independence era such as
Ousmane Sembene and Oumarou
Ganda, among others saw
filmmaking as an important political
tool for rectifying the erroneous
image of Africans put forward by
Western filmmakers and for

 The first African film to win

international recognition was
Sembne Ousmane's La Noire de...
also known as Black Girl. It showed
the despair of an African woman who
has to work as a maid in France

 With the creation of the African film

festival FESPACO in Burkina Faso in
1969, African film created its own
forum. FESPACO now takes place
every two years in alternation with
the film festival Carthago in (Tunisi

 The
Pan African Federation of Filmmakers
(Fdration Panafricaine des
Cinastes, or FEPACI)[17] was formed
in 1969 in order to focus attention on
the promotion of African film
industries in terms of production,
distribution and exhibition.

 Med Hondo's Soleil O, shot in 1969,

was immediately recognized. No less
politically engaged than Sembne,
he chose a more controversial filmic
language to show what it means to
be a stranger in France with the
"wrong" skin colour.

1980s and 1990s

Souleymane Ciss's Yeelen (Mali, 1987) and Cheick
Oumar Sissoko's Guimba (Mali, 1995) were well received
in the west. Some critics criticized the filmmakers for
adapting to the exotic tastes of western audiences.
Many films of the 1990s, including Quartier Mozart by
Jean-Pierre Bekolo (Cameroon, 1992), are situated in the
globalized African metropolis.
Nigerian cinema experienced a large growth in the
1990s with the increasing availability of home video
cameras in Nigeria, and soon centered Nollywood as the
nexus for West African English-language films.

2000s to present
2000s to present
A first African Film Summit took place in
South Africa in 2006. It was followed by
FEPACI 9th Congress.
The African Movie Academy Awards were
launched in 2004, marking the growth of
local film industries like that of Nigeria as
well as the development and spread of the
film industry culture in sub-Saharan Afric

Themess
African cinema focuses on social and
political themes rather than any
commercial interests, and is an
exploration of the conflicts between
the traditional past and modern
times.

 Some African filmmakers, for

example Ousmane Sembne, try to
give back African history to African
people by remembering the
resistance to European and Islamic
domination

 Patterns of African oral literature

often recur in African films. African
film has also been influenced by
traditions from other continents,
such as Italian neorealism, Brazilian
Cinema Novo and the theatre of
Bertolt Brecht.

Women Directors
Ethnologist and filmmaker Safi Faye was the first African
woman film director to gain international recognition.
In 1972, Sarah Maldoror shot her film Sambizanga about the
196174 war in Angola. Surviving African women of this war
are the subject of the documentary Les Oublies (The
forgotten women), made by Anne-Laure Folly 20 years later.
In 1995, Wanjiru Kinyanjui made the feature film The Battle
of the Sacred Tree in Kenya.
In 2008, Manouchka Kelly Labouba became the first woman
in Gabon cinema history to direct a fictional film. Her short
film Le Divorce addresses the impact of modern and
traditional values on the divorce of a young Gabonese couple