Contemporary Lusophone African Film

Offering a range of critical perspectives on a vibrant body of films, this collection of essays engages with questions specific to the various cinemas and films addressed while putting forward an argument for their inclusion in current debates on world cinema. The collection brings together 11 chapters by recognized scholars, who analyze a variety of films and videos from Angola, Cape Verde, Guiné-Bissau, and Mozambique. It also includes an interview with Pedro Pimenta, one of the most distinguished African film festival organizers. Drawing on various theoretical perspectives, the volume strives to reverse the relative invisibility that has afflicted these cinemas, arguing that most, if not all, Lusophone films are transnational in all aspects of production, acting, and reception. The initial three chapters sketch broad, comparative overviews and suggest theoretical approaches, while the ensuing chapters focus on specific case studies and discuss a number of key issues such as the convergence of film with politics, the question of gender and violence, as well as the revisiting of the period immediately following independence. Attention is given to fiction, documentary films and recent, short, alternative video productions that are overlooked by more traditional channels. The book stresses the need to pay attention to the significance of African film, and Lusophone African film in particular, within the developing field of world cinema. Bringing together general overviews, historical considerations, detailed case studies, and focused theoretical reflections, this book is a significant volume for students and researchers in film studies, especially African, Lusophone cultural studies, and world cinema.

With more than 250 million speakers globally, the Lusophone world has a rich history of filmmaking. This edited volume explores the representation of the migratory experience in contemporary cinema from Portuguese-speaking countries, exploring how Lusophone films, filmmakers, producers, studios, and governments relay narratives of migration.

Situates the cultures of Portuguese-speaking Africa within the postcolonial, global era.

Africa is usually depicted in Western media as a continent plagued by continuous wars, civil conflicts, disease, and human rights violations; however, an analysis of the region’s cultural output reveals the depth and strength of the character of the African people that has endured the burden of colonialism. Undoubtedly, much of the scholarship on African literature focuses on countries colonized by the British such as South Africa and Nigeria; however, the African nations colonized by Spain and Portugal have also made major literary contributions. This volume examines the literature and cinema of the African nations colonized by Spain and Portugal (Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Cabo Verde, Angola, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe) to demonstrate the complexity and heterogeneity of these countries in their attempts to establish a post-colonial identity. This volume is intended for undergraduate students, graduate students, and researchers seeking to study Hispanic and Luso-African literature and film, and so better understand cultural production in previously underrepresented nations of Africa.

With more than 250 million speakers globally, the Lusophone world has a rich history of filmmaking. This edited volume explores the representation of the migratory experience in contemporary cinema from Portuguese-speaking countries, exploring how Lusophone films, filmmakers, producers, studios, and governments relay narratives of migration.

This collection of essays deals directly and compellingly with contemporary issues in African cinema. In particular, they address key aspects of post-colonialism and feminism - the two major topics of interest in current criticism of African films - but coverage is also given to spectatorship, national identity, ethnography, patriarchy, and the creation of key film industries in developing countries.

Analyzing art house films from the African continent and the African diaspora, this book showcases a new generation of auteurs with African origins from political, aesthetic, and spectatorship perspectives. Focuses on art house cinema and discusses commercial African cinema Enlarges our understanding of African film to include thematic and aesthetic influence Highlights aesthetic and political aspects including racial identity, women’s issues, and diaspora Heavily illustrated with over 90 film stills Features selected stills integral to the filmic analysis in full color Moves beyond Western-oriented analytical paradigms

In the millennial transition the prefix 'post' had come to signify more and more not just the realisation of a 'coming after' but also of the impossibility of not seeing the present as still very much working through the wounds of the past. Yet with the appearance of pseudo-concepts such as 'post-truth' after an equally imaginary 'death of History', the logic of the 'post', itself always already under questioning, may appear to have outlived its usefulness. How to make sense of postcolonial theory in Europe in the present? One way might be to renew its significance as world conflicts have entered a new 'post-imperial phase' with the return of ideologies of empire in various parts of the world. The essays in this volume address those questions at both a conceptual, theoretical level, and through the analysis of specific case studies. In the Introduction Paulo de Medeiros and Sandra Ponzanesi review the main questions outlined above in relation to the current debates in the Humanities from their respective disciplinary perspectives. The volume is organised in four sections, each containing four chapters. Even though all the chapters present a reflection on Postcolonial Theory and Crisis, some focus more specifically on aspects of the crisis in a global perspective such as humanitarian crisis and the role of mediatization of conflicts, to issues related to human rights, refugees, migrancy, environmental crisis to questions of memory and postmemory as well as the critique of art and utopian thought.