AFRICAN CINEMA

African Movies Throughout The Tears From Its Earliest

African Movies Throughout The Tears From Its Earliest

Introduction

The term African cinema generally refers to films produced in the Sub-Saharan Africa. Although the film came to Africa since the late nineteenth century, but the African film has started to develop only after the War World, in the period immediately preceding the progressive decolonization of the continent. In the vast majority of cases, the most interesting African cinemas remain dependent on foreign aid as economic conditions are rarely met for a true industry to exist. Many African filmmakers have lead pipes or career from abroad, living in France, Belgium and elsewhere. In recent years, with the emergence of the video, especially with digital video (which allows shooting lighter and economic); there are a number of countries with emerging filmmakers living and working in Africa (Fanon, 2007).

Now, In Africa, there are many homegrown filmmakers who offer original voices and great insights into the distinct cultures of their homelands. They are not only actively contributing to the collective consciousness of African cinema, but they are also pushing its boundaries. The delights of pure African cinema often go unnoticed in the rest of the world. In an age where independent films and global cinema are so readily available, it is well worth taking a look at the past and present of the African continent's cinema history. This paper discusses African Cinema comprehensively.

Discussion

French film historian Georges (2009) observed in 1960 that while many African countries south of the Sahara had gained their independence, no really African film yet existed, i.e., one produced, directed, photographed, and edited by Africans and starring Africans who spoke in African languages. Rather, only British, French, and U.S. filmmakers had been making documentaries and fictional films in Africa and about Africans ever since 1900, five years after the Lumiere Brothers invented motion pictures.

Jean Rouch, father of Cinema Vrite and founder of the Comité du film ethnographique (Ethnographic Film Committee) at the Musée de I'Homme (Anthropological Museum), noted how this situation changed. At a round table discussion on Africa and Film, organized in 1961 by UNESCO, Rouch drew attention to the 1egacy left by the British Colonial Film Unit in Africa, the Belgian Missionary Cinema, and the Ethnographic Film Committee in collaboration with the French Foreign Ministry. He pointed to the Anglopbone Africans trained at the Accra Film Training School and the first Francophone African graduates from the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinfmatopraphiques (National Film School) in Paris (Burns, 2002).

Rouch also wanted to get the French government to install partial film production units in the former colonies and to create a Paris-based Postproduction center where Francophone African filmmakers could process their rushes and gain access to postproduction services available only in Europe and the United States. Furthermore, Rouch prescribed 16mm cameras as most economically viable for any developing countries (Goerg, 2009).

However, more than twenty years later, Med Hondo, a Mauritanian filmmaker, wrote in Le Monde, “Despite the constant efforts of politicians and men of culture, ...