Currently in preparation

Sub-Saharan African Cinema: A Critical Filmography

edited by Jerry White (University of Alberta)

Sub-Saharan African Cinema: A Critical Filmography traces a wide variety of filmmaking practices across the region, including films made by former colonial powers. The book is divided by country and discusses key films in relation to the challenges facing both national cinemas and the project of building a continental cinema.

Since the belated birth of indigenous production in the 1960s and in earlier colonial efforts, cinema in sub-Saharan Africa has existed in a precarious state. It has also, however, been the site of some of the most vibrant filmmaking in recent history. The volume balances discussion of propaganda or colonialist efforts (the Belgian Congo and South Africa being vivid examples), film as a political practice (including Ousmane Sembene but also younger filmmakers such as Jean-Marie Teno and Mahamat-Saleh Haroun) and popular cinemas (including the ‘Nollywood’ industry of Nigeria). The films and filmmakers who have made African cinema the subject of great critical attention over the past few decades are examined in depth, in addition to lesser-known but fascinating films from the silent era.

In Sub-Saharan African Cinema: A Critical Filmography experts from a variety of fields document one of the most vibrant and resilient world cinemas. The issues it addresses include African cinema’s relation to African oral traditions and other art forms, the clash of traditional and modern values in this most modern of mediums and the role of former colonial powers in indigenous production today.

Jerry White is associate professor of Film Studies at the University of Alberta, and a member of the education staff of the Telluride Film Festival. He is author of The Radio Eye: Cinema in the North Atlantic (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, forthcoming) and Of This Place and Elsewhere: The Films and Photography of Peter Mettler (Toronto International Film Festival/Indiana University Press, 2006), editor of The Cinema of Canada (Wallflower Press, 2006), and co-editor of North of Everything: English-Canadian Cinema Since 1980 (University of Alberta Press, 2002).