Description
Book SynopsisThis book traces the developments in African films that were made from the 1990s to the present within the evolving frame of what came to be called World Cinema' and, eventually, Global Cinema.'
Kenneth W. Harrow explores how, from the time video and then digital technologies were introduced in the 1990s, and then again, when streaming platforms assumed major roles in producing and distributing film between the 2010s and 2020s, African cinema underwent enormous changes. He highlights how the introduction of the continent's first successful commercial cinema, Nollywood, shifted the focus from engagé films, with social or political messages, to entertainment movies, but also auteur cinema. Harrow explores how this transformation liberated African filmmakers and resulted in an incredible, enduring flow of creative, inventive, and thoughtful filmmaking. This book presents a number of those critical films that mark that trajectory, projecting a new sense of African film spaces and
Trade Review
An account of the shifting temporalities, spatialities, and formalities of African cinema by one of the finest scholars of African cultural productions. Kenneth W. Harrow rigorously redefines the contours of world cinema with a brilliant turn to the worldmaking projects of African films, running the gamut from video production to digital film. The resulting book is smartly historicist, formally innovative, and theoretically intelligent. Harrow has produced a field-shaping book. - Cajetan Iheka, Professor of English, Yale University
Harrow’s book – original, eccentric, provocative – establishes African cinema from the long 1990s to the present as a singular, powerful alternative to world cinema. Translating from quantum mechanics to critical theory, Harrow brilliantly reframes key issues raised by postcolonial theory, deconstruction, and apparatus theory. - Carmelo Garritano, Associate Professor of International Affairs and Africana Studies, Texas A&M University
Table of ContentsIntroduction: African Cinema in a Global Age Part One: The Long 1990s 1. What the 1980s Brought 2. Kenneth Nnuebe, Living in Bondage (1992) and the Onset of Nollywood 3. Claire, Denis, Chocolat (1988), Auteurism and African Cinema Part Two: The Problematics of Modernity in African Cinema at the Millenium 4. Modernity in the Work of Tunde Kelani: Ti Oluwa Ni Ile (1993) and Thunderbolt: Magun (2001) 5. Modernity, Dominique Loreau, and Les Noms n’habitent nulle part (1994) 6. Two Films of Sotigui Kouyate, a Modern Griot: A. Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Sotigui Kouyaté (1995); Rachid Bouchareb, Little Senegal (2000) 7. Framing Modernity, Abroad: Anyaene, Ije (2010) and Andrew Dosunmu, Mother of George, 2013 Part Three: African Cinema in an Age of Globalism Prologue: Time and the End: Cheah’s Normativity and Teleological Time 8. Alain Gomis, Tey (2012): Being Toward Death 9. Two Films about Women Witches: Rugano Nyoni, I Am Not a Witch (2017); Maia Lekow, Christopher King, The Letter (2019) 10. The Resistance of the Old Woman: Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection (2019) Conclusion: An Opera of This World (2017), Manthia Diawara: The Encounter with the Other Face-to-Face
