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The Winds of African Cinema

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2015

MaryEllen Higgins
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Abstract:

This article argues for a departure from theories of new cinema “waves” and proposes the notion of cinema “winds” as a more compelling conceptual framework for studies of African film movements. Building on the work of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Manthia Diawara, Ken Harrow, and Nwachukwu Frank Ukadike, in addition to commentaries by various African film directors, this article looks at various dimensions of global visibility and the elusive movements of African cinemas. It also explores how African directors challenge habits of seeing and interpreting world cinema.

Résumé:

Cet article revendique une rupture avec les théories de “vagues” du nouveau cinéma et propose la notion de “vents” du cinéma comme un cadre conceptuel plus convaincant pour les études des mouvements du cinéma africain. En se basant sur les travaux de Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Manthia Diawara, Ken Harrow, et Nwachukwu Frank Ukadike, ainsi que des commentaires de différents réalisateurs africains, cet article se penche sur diverses composantes de la visibilité mondiale et les mouvements insaisissables des cinémas africains. Il explore également comment les réalisateurs africains défient les regards et les interprétations habituels du cinéma du monde.

Keywords

African cinemaAfrican film movementsglobalecticsNew Wave
Type
ASR FORUM: WHAT’S NEW IN AFRICAN CINEMA?
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 58 , Issue 3 , December 2015 , pp. 77 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2015 

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References

References

Abouna (Our Father). 2002. Directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun. Chad: Duo Films.Google Scholar
Africa paradis. 2006. Directed by Sylvestre Amoussou. Benin/France/Senegal: Tchoko Tchoko, 7ème art, Koffi Productions.Google Scholar
Afrique sur Seine. 1955. Directed by Mamadou Sarr and Paulin Vieyra. France/Senegal: Groupe Africaine du Cinéma.Google Scholar
Ainsi meurent les anges (And So Angels Die). 2001. Directed by Moussa Sene Absa. Senegal: MSA Productions.Google Scholar
Daratt (Dry Season). 2006. Directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun. Chad: Chinguitty Films, Entre Chiens et Loup, Goï-Goï Productions.Google Scholar
Finye (The Wind). 1982. Directed by Souleymane Cissé. Mali: Titra Films.Google Scholar
Heremakono (Waiting for Happiness). 2002. Directed by Abderrahmane Sissako. Mauritania/France: Duo Films, Arte France.Google Scholar
Hyènes (Hyenas). 1992. Directed by Djibril Diop Mambety. Senegal: ADR Productions, Thelma Film AG.Google Scholar
Kare Kare Zvako (Mother’s Day). 2004. Directed by Tsitsi Dangarembga. Zimbabwe: Nyerai Films, Pangolin Films.Google Scholar
La noire de . . . (Black Girl). 1965. Directed by Ousmane Sembène. Senegal/France: Doomireew Films.Google Scholar
La vie sur terre (Life on Earth). 1998. Directed by Abderrahmane Sissako. Mauritania/Mali/France: La Sept Arte, Haut et Court.Google Scholar
Le complot d’Aristote (Aristotle’s Plot). 1995. Directed by Jean-Pierre Bekolo. Cameroon: Jacques Bidou.Google Scholar
Le Président. 2013. Directed by Jean-Pierre Bekolo. Cameroon: Buni Media.Google Scholar
Little Senegal. 2001. Directed by Rachid Bouchareb. Algeria/Germany/Senegal/U.S.: Tadrart Films.Google Scholar
Mandabi. 1968. Directed by Ousmane Sembène. Senegal: Doomireew Films.Google Scholar
Pumzi (Breath). 2009. Directed by Wanuri Kahiu. Kenya: Goethe Institute, Art in Africa Foundation.Google Scholar
Sankofa. 1993. Directed by Haile Gerima. Ethiopia/Ghana: Negod Gwad Productions.Google Scholar
Tableau ferraille. 1997. Directed by Moussa Sene Absa. Senegal: MSA Productions, ADR Productions, Canal Horizons, Kus Productions, La Sept Cinéma.Google Scholar
Touki Bouki. 1973. Directed by Djibril Diop Mambety. Senegal: Cinegrit, Studio Kankourama.Google Scholar
Une feuille dans le vent (A Leaf in the Wind). 2013. Directed by Jean-Marie Teno. Cameroon/Gabon/France: Les Films du Raphia.Google Scholar
Un homme qui crie (A Screaming Man). 2010. Directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun. Chad/France: Pili Films, Goï-Goï Productions, Entre Chiens et Loup.Google Scholar
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Césaire, Aimé. 1939. Cahier d’un retour au pays natal. Paris: Présence africaine.Google Scholar
Campbell, Neil. 2015. Preface. “Coming Back to Bad It Up”: The Posthumous and the Post-Western.” In The Western in the Global South, edited by Higgins, MaryEllen, Kerestezi, Rita, and Oscherwitz, Dayna, xii–xx. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Comaroff, Jean, and Comaroff, John L.. 2012. Theory from the South: Or, How Euro-America Is Evolving toward Africa. Boulder, Colo.: Paradigm.Google Scholar
DeBlieu, Jan. 1998. Wind: How the Flow of Air Has Shaped Life, Myth, and the Land. Berkeley: Counterpoint.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Félix. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Massumi, Brian. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Diawara, Manthia. 1992. African Cinema: Politics and Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Diawara, Manthia. 2010. African Film: New Forms of Aesthetics and Politics. Munich: Prestel.Google Scholar
Diop, Birago. 1979. “Spirits” [“Souffles”]. In The Negritude Poets: An Anthology of Translations from the French, edited by Kennedy, Ellen Conroy, 152–54. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press.Google Scholar
Espinosa, Julio García. 1979. “For an Imperfect Cinema.” Translated by Julianne Burton. Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media 20: 24–26.Google Scholar
Garritano, Carmela. 2013. African Video Movies and Global Desires. Athens: Ohio University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guneratne, Anthony R., and Dissanayake, Wimal, eds. 2003. Rethinking Third Cinema. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gueye, Oulimata. 2013. “Africa & Science Fiction: Wanuri Kahiu’s ‘Pumzi’, 2009.” www.youtube.com.Google Scholar
Harrow, Kenneth W. 2007. Postcolonial African Cinema: From Political Engagement to Postmodernism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Harrow, Kenneth W. 2013a. Trash: African Cinema from Below. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Harrow, Kenneth W. 2013b. “Making Waves with Diawara’s ‘New African Cinema Wave.’” Paper presented at the conference of the African Studies Association, Baltimore, November.Google Scholar
Hesford, Wendy. 2011. Spectacular Rhetorics: Human Rights Visions, Recognitions, Feminisms. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Higgins, MaryEllen. 2010. “From Negritude to Migritude? Moussa Sene Absa’s Ainsi meurent les anges.” African Literature Today 28: 17–26.Google Scholar
Martin, Sean. 2013. New Waves in Cinema. London: Kamera Books.Google Scholar
Mengestu, Dinaw. 2010. How to Read the Air. New York: Riverhead.Google Scholar
Miller, Christopher L. 1998. Nationalists and Nomads: Essays on Francophone African Literature and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. 1993. Moving the Center: The Struggle for Cultural Freedoms. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. 2012. Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Newton, David E. 2014. “Wind.” In The Gale Encyclopedia of Science, 5th edition, vol. 8, edited by Lerner, K. Lee and Lerner, Brenda Wilmoth, 4705–6. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale.Google Scholar
Oscherwitz, Dayna. 2008. “Of Cowboys and Elephants: Africa, Globalization, and the Nouveau Western in Djibril Diop Mambety’s Hyenas.” Research in African Literatures 39 (1): 223–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prabhu, Anjali. 2014. Contemporary Cinema of Africa and the Diaspora. Malden, Mass: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Rajchman, John. 2000. The Deleuze Connections. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shohat, Ella, and Stam, Robert. 1998. “Narrativizing Visual Culture: Towards a Polycentric Aesthetics.” In The Visual Culture Reader, edited by Mirzoeff, Nicholas, 37–59. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sinagra, Laura. 2004. “Letters From Chad: Filmmaking without a Film Industry.” The Village Voice, February 10. www.villagevoice.com.Google Scholar
Smith, Shawn Michelle. 2013. At the Edge of Sight: Photography and the Unseen. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Solanas, Fernando, and Getino, Octavio. 1976. “Towards a Third Cinema.” In Movies and Methods: An Anthology, Volume 1, edited by Nichols, Bill, 44–66. Berkeley: University of California Press: 44–64.Google Scholar
Sundaram, Ravi. 2009. “Revisiting the Pirate Kingdom.” Third Text 23 (3): 335–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Truffaut, François. 1954. “Une certaine tendence du cinéma français.” Cahiers du cinéma (31): 15–29.Google Scholar
Tweedle, James. 2013. The Age of New Waves: Art Cinema and the Staging of Globalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ukadike, Frank Nwachukwu. 2002. Questioning African Cinema: Conversations with Filmmakers. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Ukadike, Frank Nwachukwu, ed. 2014. Critical Approaches to African Cinema Discourse. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Abouna (Our Father). 2002. Directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun. Chad: Duo Films.Google Scholar
Africa paradis. 2006. Directed by Sylvestre Amoussou. Benin/France/Senegal: Tchoko Tchoko, 7ème art, Koffi Productions.Google Scholar
Afrique sur Seine. 1955. Directed by Mamadou Sarr and Paulin Vieyra. France/Senegal: Groupe Africaine du Cinéma.Google Scholar
Ainsi meurent les anges (And So Angels Die). 2001. Directed by Moussa Sene Absa. Senegal: MSA Productions.Google Scholar
Daratt (Dry Season). 2006. Directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun. Chad: Chinguitty Films, Entre Chiens et Loup, Goï-Goï Productions.Google Scholar
Finye (The Wind). 1982. Directed by Souleymane Cissé. Mali: Titra Films.Google Scholar
Heremakono (Waiting for Happiness). 2002. Directed by Abderrahmane Sissako. Mauritania/France: Duo Films, Arte France.Google Scholar
Hyènes (Hyenas). 1992. Directed by Djibril Diop Mambety. Senegal: ADR Productions, Thelma Film AG.Google Scholar
Kare Kare Zvako (Mother’s Day). 2004. Directed by Tsitsi Dangarembga. Zimbabwe: Nyerai Films, Pangolin Films.Google Scholar
La noire de . . . (Black Girl). 1965. Directed by Ousmane Sembène. Senegal/France: Doomireew Films.Google Scholar
La vie sur terre (Life on Earth). 1998. Directed by Abderrahmane Sissako. Mauritania/Mali/France: La Sept Arte, Haut et Court.Google Scholar
Le complot d’Aristote (Aristotle’s Plot). 1995. Directed by Jean-Pierre Bekolo. Cameroon: Jacques Bidou.Google Scholar
Le Président. 2013. Directed by Jean-Pierre Bekolo. Cameroon: Buni Media.Google Scholar
Little Senegal. 2001. Directed by Rachid Bouchareb. Algeria/Germany/Senegal/U.S.: Tadrart Films.Google Scholar
Mandabi. 1968. Directed by Ousmane Sembène. Senegal: Doomireew Films.Google Scholar
Pumzi (Breath). 2009. Directed by Wanuri Kahiu. Kenya: Goethe Institute, Art in Africa Foundation.Google Scholar
Sankofa. 1993. Directed by Haile Gerima. Ethiopia/Ghana: Negod Gwad Productions.Google Scholar
Tableau ferraille. 1997. Directed by Moussa Sene Absa. Senegal: MSA Productions, ADR Productions, Canal Horizons, Kus Productions, La Sept Cinéma.Google Scholar
Touki Bouki. 1973. Directed by Djibril Diop Mambety. Senegal: Cinegrit, Studio Kankourama.Google Scholar
Une feuille dans le vent (A Leaf in the Wind). 2013. Directed by Jean-Marie Teno. Cameroon/Gabon/France: Les Films du Raphia.Google Scholar
Un homme qui crie (A Screaming Man). 2010. Directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun. Chad/France: Pili Films, Goï-Goï Productions, Entre Chiens et Loup.Google Scholar
Wind of Glory. 2007. Directed by Tchidi Chikere. Nigeria: Annex Merchandise.Google Scholar
Wind of Glory 2. 2007. Directed by Tchidi Chikere. Nigeria: Annex Merchandise.Google Scholar
Wind of Glory 3. 2007. Directed by Tchidi Chikere. Nigeria: Annex Merchandise.Google Scholar
Wind of Mistakes. 2014. Directed by Famous Otakponmwen. Nigeria: Famsota Films.Google Scholar
Wind of Mistakes 2. 2014. Directed by Famous Otakponmwen. Nigeria: Famsota Films.Google Scholar
Barlet, Olivier. 2013. “Une feuille dans le vent, de Jean-Marie Teno: Les séquelles de la violence et du silence.” Africultures Critique, July 28. www.africultures.com.Google Scholar
Césaire, Aimé. 1939. Cahier d’un retour au pays natal. Paris: Présence africaine.Google Scholar
Campbell, Neil. 2015. Preface. “Coming Back to Bad It Up”: The Posthumous and the Post-Western.” In The Western in the Global South, edited by Higgins, MaryEllen, Kerestezi, Rita, and Oscherwitz, Dayna, xii–xx. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Comaroff, Jean, and Comaroff, John L.. 2012. Theory from the South: Or, How Euro-America Is Evolving toward Africa. Boulder, Colo.: Paradigm.Google Scholar
DeBlieu, Jan. 1998. Wind: How the Flow of Air Has Shaped Life, Myth, and the Land. Berkeley: Counterpoint.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Félix. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Massumi, Brian. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Diawara, Manthia. 1992. African Cinema: Politics and Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Diawara, Manthia. 2010. African Film: New Forms of Aesthetics and Politics. Munich: Prestel.Google Scholar
Diop, Birago. 1979. “Spirits” [“Souffles”]. In The Negritude Poets: An Anthology of Translations from the French, edited by Kennedy, Ellen Conroy, 152–54. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press.Google Scholar
Espinosa, Julio García. 1979. “For an Imperfect Cinema.” Translated by Julianne Burton. Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media 20: 24–26.Google Scholar
Garritano, Carmela. 2013. African Video Movies and Global Desires. Athens: Ohio University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guneratne, Anthony R., and Dissanayake, Wimal, eds. 2003. Rethinking Third Cinema. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gueye, Oulimata. 2013. “Africa & Science Fiction: Wanuri Kahiu’s ‘Pumzi’, 2009.” www.youtube.com.Google Scholar
Harrow, Kenneth W. 2007. Postcolonial African Cinema: From Political Engagement to Postmodernism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Harrow, Kenneth W. 2013a. Trash: African Cinema from Below. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Harrow, Kenneth W. 2013b. “Making Waves with Diawara’s ‘New African Cinema Wave.’” Paper presented at the conference of the African Studies Association, Baltimore, November.Google Scholar
Hesford, Wendy. 2011. Spectacular Rhetorics: Human Rights Visions, Recognitions, Feminisms. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Higgins, MaryEllen. 2010. “From Negritude to Migritude? Moussa Sene Absa’s Ainsi meurent les anges.” African Literature Today 28: 17–26.Google Scholar
Martin, Sean. 2013. New Waves in Cinema. London: Kamera Books.Google Scholar
Mengestu, Dinaw. 2010. How to Read the Air. New York: Riverhead.Google Scholar
Miller, Christopher L. 1998. Nationalists and Nomads: Essays on Francophone African Literature and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. 1993. Moving the Center: The Struggle for Cultural Freedoms. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. 2012. Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Newton, David E. 2014. “Wind.” In The Gale Encyclopedia of Science, 5th edition, vol. 8, edited by Lerner, K. Lee and Lerner, Brenda Wilmoth, 4705–6. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale.Google Scholar
Oscherwitz, Dayna. 2008. “Of Cowboys and Elephants: Africa, Globalization, and the Nouveau Western in Djibril Diop Mambety’s Hyenas.” Research in African Literatures 39 (1): 223–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prabhu, Anjali. 2014. Contemporary Cinema of Africa and the Diaspora. Malden, Mass: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Rajchman, John. 2000. The Deleuze Connections. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shohat, Ella, and Stam, Robert. 1998. “Narrativizing Visual Culture: Towards a Polycentric Aesthetics.” In The Visual Culture Reader, edited by Mirzoeff, Nicholas, 37–59. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sinagra, Laura. 2004. “Letters From Chad: Filmmaking without a Film Industry.” The Village Voice, February 10. www.villagevoice.com.Google Scholar
Smith, Shawn Michelle. 2013. At the Edge of Sight: Photography and the Unseen. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Solanas, Fernando, and Getino, Octavio. 1976. “Towards a Third Cinema.” In Movies and Methods: An Anthology, Volume 1, edited by Nichols, Bill, 44–66. Berkeley: University of California Press: 44–64.Google Scholar
Sundaram, Ravi. 2009. “Revisiting the Pirate Kingdom.” Third Text 23 (3): 335–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Truffaut, François. 1954. “Une certaine tendence du cinéma français.” Cahiers du cinéma (31): 15–29.Google Scholar
Tweedle, James. 2013. The Age of New Waves: Art Cinema and the Staging of Globalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ukadike, Frank Nwachukwu. 2002. Questioning African Cinema: Conversations with Filmmakers. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Ukadike, Frank Nwachukwu, ed. 2014. Critical Approaches to African Cinema Discourse. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books.Google Scholar