Documentary Objectives: Filming Africa from Colonialism to Independence - Rachel Gabara

Session Description: For well over a century, filmmakers have been shooting documentaries in West and Central Africa, a region that included the colonies of French West and Equatorial Africa and now encompasses fourteen nations and nearly 200 million people. These films played a crucial role in the development of both European and African cinemas yet have been largely ignored by scholars. In the wake of fifty years of French colonial documentary in sub-Saharan Africa- propaganda-infused travel, hunting, expedition, and ethnographic films- African directors reclaimed their cinematic image by ch