XVII * New Literatures

This chapter has six sections: 1 . Africa; 2 . Australia; 3 . Canada; 4 . The Caribbean; 5 . The Indian Subcontinent and Sri Lanka; 6 . New Zealand. Section 1 is by Femi Abodunrin; section 2 is by Leigh Dale and Chris Tiffin; section 3 is by Richard Lane; section 4 is by Suzanne Scafe; section 5 is by Rachel Farebrother and Caroline Herbert; section 6 is by Nelson Wattie. Often described as Africa's newest and least known art form, African cinema has received a great deal of critical attention lately. Françoise Pfaff, ed., Focus on African Films , is a collection of essays focusing on ‘the use of film as a means of expression and communication by subsaharan Black Africans’ (p. 1). The volume addresses the creative and critical disquiet that has surrounded the whole issue of cinematic representation of Africa and Africans as ‘mere backdrop—with stereotypically uncivilized, childish, or cruel natives—for triumphant acts by great White hunters and treasure seekers’ (p. 1). The emergence of indigenous African filmmakers, depicting a changing continent in precolonial, colonial and postcolonial stages, according to Pfaff, entailed the production of films ‘often serious and didactic rather than escapist although not lacking in humour and irony’, and the emergence of filmmakers and directors ‘who have often compared themselves to the griots (bards/chroniclers) of traditional African cultures’ (p. 2). Pioneer African writer and filmmaker Sembene Ousmane of Senegal articulates the context of African filmmakers’ responses to these Western depictions in ways similar to those of postcolonial literary writers: ‘We had to see, feel, and understand ourselves through the mirror of film. For us, African filmmakers, it was necessary to become political, to become involved in a struggle against all the ills of man's cupidity, envy, individualism, the nouveau-riche mentality, and all the things we have inherited from the colonial and neo-colonial systems’ (p. 2). If the initial response was what Pfaff has described as ‘dichotomous representations of idyllic precolonial life corrupted and destroyed by European colonizers’ (p. 3), African films have since evolved from counter-representation to historical portrayal. Notable examples include Sissoko's Guimba [Mali, 1995], which critically explores the traditional systems of government that led to abuses of power, and Gnoan M’Bala's Adanggaman [Ivory Coast, 2000] which forcefully investigates ‘the responsibilities of Africans in the establishment of the transatlantic slave trade’ (p. 3), to name just a few. In contrast to other books on African cinema, Focus on African Films offers unique and pluralistic perspectives on filmmaking from varied areas of Africa rather than a reductive assessment of the cinematic output of the continent. In short, it ‘provides an innovative, kaleidoscopic analysis of African films released since the 1950s. These films reflect quite distinct thematic, stylistic, and socio-economic characteristics, as detailed in the studies’ (p. 8). According to Pfaff, a critical examination of African films ‘should be as diverse as the registers and deliveries of griots, with amplitude for a broad range of views’ (p. 8). In his introduction, Pfaff considers this diversity: from the multiple roles that the average African filmmaker may be forced to undertake—or what Pfaff describes as ‘the creative dispersion of filmmakers who are simultaneously scriptwriters, producers, directors, and even distributors of their motion pictures!’ (p. 7)—to the constant revision of the very nature of their creative bent, for example in giving birth to styles close to indigenous dramatic arts, ‘as can be observed in the realm of Nigerian films and video productions, some of which use plots and structures directly influenced by Yoruba theatre’ (p. 7).

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