African Cinema – An Overview
by Shirley Okwi
African cinema is a relatively new film genre. It has been
referred to as engaged cinema because of its didactic role.
African cinema is didactic in a way that it typically
depicts African settings and situations. It points out
issues affecting the continent today and also suggests
suitable solutions.
Prominent African filmmakers include the likes of Ousmane
Sembene, Gerima Heile, Ouedrago Idrissa, Kouyate Dani among
others.
African cinema is here to tell the African story with out
bias. African has for long been referred to as a dark
continent in which people tested their courage. It was
viewed as a place for adventure. Thus there was always a
story to tell as Karen Blixen and Joyce Cary told in Out of
Africa and Mr. Johnson respectively. Here, Africa is
depicted as static and naïve. African cinema was impelled by
the need to contest and correct such stock images of the
continent.
From another perspective, African film purports to reflect
the culture of the African peoples before the western
culture compromised it. For this reason, it’s familiar that
African filmmakers present a clash between the western
culture and the African culture.
Thematically, African cinema is preoccupied with various
issues including African post independence politics. African
filmmakers in this way present a hopeful people awaiting
independence. However to their disillusionment, the
situation even became worse as the elite gradually turned
into power hungry and corrupt dictators. This is typically
illustrated in Sembene Ousmane’s Xala. African cinema is
further concerned with poverty, an evil that has for long
crippled the continent. In the same way, African filmmakers
seek to present the suffering the African woman has gone
through in her patriarchal society.
African cinema is unswervingly concerned about the colonial
experience as well as racial intolerance and segregation
that the blacks have suffered. The issue of slave trade and
slavery is also presented vividly.
Stylistically, African Cinema is closer to Italian realism.
This is for the reason that non-professional actors and
actual locations are used, the stories are not neatly
plotted and most of them are in documentary visual style. In
fact in the recently concluded 2nd Amakula Kampala
international film festival, the best-shot film was a
30-minute by Gang Odong Obur. The use of subtitles is also
imperative because many of these films are in native African
languages. Translation into English or French becomes
crucial so as to reach the majority of the audience.
On a final note, it’s significant to discern that the recent
flared-up Nigerian films are not part of this category. The
Nigerian movies are essentially for home consumption.
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Shirley Okwi is a student in her final year at the
University in Uganda.
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Copyright (c) 2005 Peter D. Marshall / All Rights Reserved
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