Questioning African Cinema: Conversations With Filmmakers

by Nwachukwu Frank Ukadike

Diverse in their art, paradoxically more celebrated abroad than they are at home, African filmmakers eke out their visions against a backdrop of complex historical, social, economic, and political practices. The richness of their accomplishments emerge with compelling clarity in this book, in which African filmmakers speak candidly about their work. Featuring interviews with key personalities from a variety of nations, Questioning African Cinema provides the most extensive, comprehensive account ever given of the origins, practice, and implications of filmmaking in Africa. Speaking with pioneers Med Hondo, Souleymane Cissé, and Kwaw Ansah; renowned feature filmmakers Djibril Mambéty, Haile Gerima, and Safi Faye; and award-winning younger filmmakers Idrissa Ouedraogo, Cheick Oumar Sissoko, and Jean-Pierre Bekolo, N. Frank Ukadike identifies trends and individual practices even as he surveys the evolution of African cinema and addresses the politics and problems of seeing Africa through an African lens. Situating the unique achievement of each filmmaker within the geographic, historical, social, and political context of African cinema, he also explores questions about acting, distribution and exhibition, history, theory and criticism, video-based television production, and television's relationship to independent film. N. Frank Ukadike is associate professor of film and of African and African diaspora studies at Tulane University.

344 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Catarina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent project with very important texts. In terms of information, the book gives us a good idea of what is happening in African cinema, and in its form it is bold enough to present contradictions and resistances between the filmmakers and the (skilful) interviewer. I would specially recommend the beautiful introduction by Teshome Gabriel and the interview of Haile Gerima, from Ethiopia.

[Eric Brightwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the book is a series of interviews with great African film directors, their struggles to find funding in countries with governments which see no value in funding the arts is relevant to creatives in non-African developing nations too, such as the US. The range of opinions, too, provides a lot of food for thought, despair, and hope. After having read this and Black African Cinema, I'd love to see Ukadike write another book about African cinema since since digital video, streaming, downloads and alternatives to FESPACO have proliferated since this book's publication.