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This seminar will provide introduction to history, politics and traditions of cinematography in selected African countries and African diaspora in the Unites States and Great Britain. Focusing on key directors and films, connections between early Postcolonial, Post Human-Rights era and contemporary filmmaking will be drawn. The class will use decolonial critical perspective to show how African filmmakers employ and reframe western cinematic tradition to tell their own stories.
The course is divided into three parts: The first part will focus on selected film traditions on the African continent - Third Cinema in the newly independent Algeria, Senegalese avantgarde filmmaker Djibril Diop Mambéty and Nollywood films in Nigeria – and the way they reflect postcolonial African reality. The second part will show how filmmakers in United States undermine power structures of Hollywood genre cinematography by introducing their own genres of Horror Noire and Blaxploitation. The work of independent authors such as Spike Lee, Julie Dash and visual artist Arthur Jafa will reveal history and impact of systemic racism. Meanwhile the rise of racial tensions in the 1980s Great Britain gave birth to film collectives – Black Audio Film Collective, Sankofa – who strategically deployed the languages of film avantgarde to question the British colonial legacies. The final part of the class will introduce filmmakers, both from Africa and its diaspora, who examine topics of identity and belonging – emerging women filmmakers from Kenya and Rwanda, key works of queer cinematography and/or challenges of British multicultural society. The very last section will be dedicated to a short history of Afrofuturism in film, highlighting mutual exchange of ideas and forms along the shores of the Black Atlantic and through time. Last update: Šarše Vojtěch, Mgr., Ph.D. (11.12.2022)
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The main objectives of the course are: Get to know selected African and Afrodiasporic film traditions and understand the way they are connected in time and space. Learn how to apply methods of film analysis on African cinematography. Get acquainted with western film traditions, both mainstream and avantgarde, to understand how African filmmakers strategically employ and undermine these traditions to tell their own stories. Last update: Šarše Vojtěch, Mgr., Ph.D. (11.12.2022)
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The course is organized as a seminar; each projection is thus followed by a section for comments and discussions. To get the credits, the students have to be active and have to write an essay on a topic related to the course. It will be further described during the first seminar. Three absences are allowed. Last update: Šarše Vojtěch, Mgr., Ph.D. (11.12.2022)
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Nwachukwu Frank Ukadike: Questioning African Cinema: Conversations with Filmmakers. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002. Manthia Diawara: African Cinema: Politics and Culture. Indiana University Press, Indianapolis 1992. Mbye B. Cham, Claire Andrade-Watkins (eds.): Black Frames: Critical Perspectives on Independent Black Cinema. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachussets, 1988. Robin R.Means Coleman: Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present. Routledge, 2011. Manthia Diawara: Black American Cinema. Routledge, 1993. Allyson Nadia Field, Jan-Christopher Horak, and Jacqueline Najuma Stewart (eds.): L.A. Rebellion, creating a new black cinema. University of California, Oakland. 2015.
Manthia Diawara: In Search of Africa, Harvard, Cambridge, Massachussets, 1998. Arthur Jaffa: The Series of Utterly Improbable, Yet Extraordinary Renditions, Galerie Rudolfinum, 2019. Tina M. Kampt. A Black Gaze: Artists Changing How We See. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachussets, 2021. Coco Fusco: Young, British and Black. Hallwalls / Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo N.Y., 1988. Anjalica Sagar, Kodwo Eshun: The Ghosts of Songs: The Film Art of the Black Audio Film Collective. Liverpool University Press, Liverpool, 2007. Petrine Archer Straw, Richard J. Powell, David A. Bailey. Back to Black: Art, Cinema and the Racial Imaginary. Whitechapel Gallery, 2005. Last update: Šarše Vojtěch, Mgr., Ph.D. (11.12.2022)
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African Safari, 1972, Horace Ové The Battle of Algiers, 1966, Gillo Pontecorvo Hyenas, 1992, Djibril Diop Mambéty Breaded Life, 2021, Biodun Stephen Candyman, 2021, Nia da Costa Super Fly, 1972, Gordon Parks Jr. Do the Right Thing, 1989, Spike Lee Daughters of the Dust, 1991, Julie Dash Love is the Message, the Message is Death, 2016, Arthur Jafa Apex, 2017, Arthur Jafa Beyoncé: Lemonade, 2016, Beyoncé, Kahlil Joseph Handsworth Songs, 1986, John Akomfrah I May Destroy You, 2021, Michaela Coel Tongues Untied, 1989, Marlon Riggs Rafiki, 2018, Wanuri Kahiu Space is the Place, 1974, John Coney The Last Angel of History, 1996, John Akomfrah The Black Panther, 2018, Ryan Coogler Neptune Frost, 2021, Anisia Uzeyman, Saul Williams
Last update: Šarše Vojtěch, Mgr., Ph.D. (11.12.2022)
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