African film in the 21st Century: some notes to a provocation

Abstract

As a transnational cinema event, the release of Marvel Studios’ Black Panther (2018)is arguably a monumental moment in the African experience of cinema.Coincidentally, this is followed in 2019 by the 26th edition of the bi-annual festival ofPan-African cinema, FESPACO, which will mark fifty years of the festival’s existence.In addition to the programme of screenings, African filmmakers, critics, theorists,among others, are expected to gather in Ouagadougou to engage with issues ofmemory, identity and the economy in relation to the idea of a sustainable and diversePan-African cinema. These issues have long been prominently placed on the agendaof those concerned with African filmmaking. That they remain a preoccupation ofcurrent debates, suggests their persistence, and perhaps, an urgent need for thesedebates to move beyond the metaphorical polarities of ‘dog eat dog’ and ‘dog eatnothing’. These ‘notes’ are therefore, in anticipation of new perspectives that wouldshape the futures of African filmmaking. Importantly, a perspective will be sketchedto help frame an approach to the idea of Pan-African cinema as a global andtransnational economy – cultural, financial and ideological.