Focus on African Films

Emphasizing post-independent films released since the 1950s and the burgeoning commercial film production of the last decade, Focus on African Films provides unique and pluralistic perspectives on filmmaking throughout Africa. As a whole, the collection highlights the distinct thematic, stylistic, and socioeconomic circumstances of African filmmaking. Individual essays show how conditions in Africa have generated a broad range of views and techniques, from the stylistically innovative documentaries of Jean-Marie Teno and Abderrahmane Sissako and the "documentary fiction" of Mahamat-Saleh Haroun to the vibrant art films of Jean-Pierre Bekolo and the new films from South Africa. Contributors also outline the direction of increasingly popular, less didactic sub-Saharan filmmaking in films such as Daniel Kamwa's Pousse-Pousse, Ngangura Mweze's La vie est belle, and Imungu Ivanga's Dôlé. Up-to-date and richly informative, Focus on African Films will be essential reading for students and scholars of African film.

Contributors are Françoise Balogun, Brenda F. Berrian, Robert Cancel, Mbye Cham, Madeleine Cottenet-Hage, Beti Ellerson, Samba Gadjigo, Josef Gugler, Kenneth W. Harrow, Françoise Pfaff, María Roof, N. Frank Ukadike, Valerie Wheat, and Josephine Woll.

Françoise Pfaff is Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Howard University, where she teaches courses on literature and film from France, West Africa, and the Caribbean.