Providing an analysis of the implications of centuries of Euro-African contact and its effect on cinematic institutions in Africa, this book examines modern African film from the perspective of the global politics of subjectivity, agency, and identity construction.

“Illuminates the enduring importance of political and economic dynamics not yet fully explored in the study of African cinema.” —Africa Cinema and Development in West Africa shows how the film industry in Francophone West African countries played an important role in executing strategies of nation building during the transition from French rule to the early postcolonial period. James E. Genova sees the construction of African identities and economic development as the major themes in the political literature and cultural production of the time. Focusing on film both as industry and aesthetic genre, he demonstrates its unique place in economic development and provides a comprehensive history of filmmaking in the region during the transition from colonies to sovereign states.

South African National Cinema examines how cinema in South Africa represents national identities, particularly with regard to race. This significant and unique contribution establishes interrelationships between South African cinema and key points in South Africa’s history, showing how cinema figures in the making, entrenching and undoing of apartheid. This study spans the twentieth century and beyond through detailed analyses of selected films, beginning with De Voortrekkers (1916) through to Mapantsula (1988) and films produced post apartheid, including Drum (2004), Tsotsi (2005) and Zulu Love Letter (2004). Jacqueline Maingard discusses how cinema reproduced and constructed a white national identity, taking readers through cinema’s role in building white Afrikaner nationalism in the 1930s and 1940s. She then moves to examine film culture and modernity in the development of black audiences from the 1920s to the 1950s, especially in a group of films that includes Jim Comes to Joburg (1949) and Come Back, Africa (1959). Jacqueline Maingard also considers the effects of the apartheid state’s film subsidy system in the 1960s and 1970s and focuses on cinema against apartheid in the 1980s. She reflects upon shifting national cinema policies following the first democratic election in 1994 and how it became possible for the first time to imagine an inclusive national film culture. Illustrated throughout with excellent visual examples, this cinema history will be of value to film scholars and historians, as well as to practitioners in South Africa today.

The rise of cinema as the predominant American entertainment around the turn of the last century coincided with the migration of hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the South to the urban "land of hope" in the North. This richly illustrated book, discussing many early films and illuminating black urban life in this period, is the first detailed look at the numerous early relationships between African Americans and cinema. It investigates African American migrations onto the screen, into the audience, and behind the camera, showing that African American urban populations and cinema shaped each other in powerful ways. Focusing on Black film culture in Chicago during the silent era, Migrating to the Movies begins with the earliest cinematic representations of African Americans and concludes with the silent films of Oscar Micheaux and other early "race films" made for Black audiences, discussing some of the extraordinary ways in which African Americans staked their claim in cinema's development as an art and a cultural institution.

Analyzing art house films from the African continent and the African diaspora, this book showcases a new generation of auteurs with African origins from political, aesthetic, and spectatorship perspectives. Focuses on art house cinema and discusses commercial African cinema Enlarges our understanding of African film to include thematic and aesthetic influence Highlights aesthetic and political aspects including racial identity, women’s issues, and diaspora Heavily illustrated with over 90 film stills Features selected stills integral to the filmic analysis in full color Moves beyond Western-oriented analytical paradigms

This book takes readers on a series of stimulating intellectual journeys from the late nineteenth century to the contemporary era to explore notions of modernity in the production and reception of the African moving image and of African archival practices. Ideas are presented from multiple historical and contemporary perspectives, while inviting new voices to participate in discussions about the future of the African moving image. Reframing Africa? makes a plea for the recognition, preservation and repatriation of the African moving image archive, advancing ideas about how it speaks to contemporary Africans, possessed of the power to elucidate their lived experiences and to reorientate perceptions of the past, present and future. On the basis of this wide-ranging appreciation of the archive, the book charts a way forward for African-inflected film studies as well as other programmes in the humanities and social sciences. Reframing Africa? will appeal to scholars, academics and practitioners across the continent and beyond