Green-Simms, African Cinema - 1

Proposed Undergraduate Syllabus

LINDSEY B. GREEN-SIMMS

African Cinema in a Global Context
This course provides students with an introduction to sub-Saharan African filmmaking
practices and to the political and social issues that have become central to African film.
Although films were shot in Africa in the early half of the 20
th
century, African filmmaking per
se refers to the films that have been made by Africans since the 1960s, when the majority of the
countries in Africa gained independence from colonial powers. This class will focus on both the
form and the content of these films by examining the way that African filmmakers project local,
national, and regional issues onto global screens. I have organized our study into four related
sections: 1) colonialism and the necessity for African self-representation; 2) gender and sexuality
politics; 3) globalization and human rights; and 4) popular video formats. In each of these units
we will examine the extent to which African films provide representations of African culture that
reject disparaging Western portrayals; the way that the films negotiate the clashes between
African and Western values; the way that the films intervene in issues of human rights, war, and
social politics; and the aesthetic forms and genres chosen by the filmmakers (i.e. social realism,
avant-gardism, magical realism, melodrama). By the end of the semester students will be
familiar with the major directors of African cinema (such as Ousmane Sembne, Djibril Diop
Mambety, Jean-Pierre Bekolo, and Abderrahmane Sissako) and will understand the local and
global issues that affect the style and circulation of African filmmaking.

Course Format:
Each week we will focus on a film and a selection of readings that provide students with
critical context regarding the larger debates in which the film may be situated. Students will be
asked to prepare a one-page response to each film that addresses some of the issues raised in the
readings. Students will also be asked to orally present two shot-by-shot analyses and to write
three critical essays throughout the semester. The class is discussion based and will require
students lively participation.

Reading Schedule:

Colonialism and Self-Representation
Week 1. Screening: J. Lee Thompsons King Solomons Mines; excerpts of The Gods Must Be
Crazy
Reading: Anne McClintock, The Lay of the Land: Genealogies of Imperialism
Robert Stam and Ella Shohat, The Imperial Imaginary
Jan Nederveen Pieterse, Savages, Animals, Heathens, Races in White on
Black: Images of Africa and Blacks in Western Popular Culture.

Week 2. Screening: Jean Rouchs Jaguar
Reading: Jean Rouch, The Situation and the Tendency of the Cinema in Africa
Jean Rouch and Ousmane Sembne, A Historic Confrontation in 1965
between Jean Rouch and Ousmane Sembne: You Look at Us as
If We Were Insects
Frank Ukadike, Africa and the Cinema in Black African Cinema
Green-Simms, African Cinema - 2

Week 3. Screening: Ousmane Sembnes Borom Sarret and La Noire De . . .
Reading: Stephen Zacks, The Theoretical Constructions of African Cinema
Manthia Diawara, African Cinema (Selections)
Francoise Pfaff, Sembne, A Griot of Modern Times

Gender and Sexuality
Week 4. Screening: Ousmane Sembnes Xala
Reading: Laura Mulvey, Ousmane Sembne (1974): The Carapace that Failed
Teshome Gabriel, Xala: A Cinema of Wax and Gold

Week 5. Screening: Djibril Diop Mambetys Touki Bouki
Reading: Frank Ukadike, The Hyenas last laugh: a conversation with Djibril Diop
Mambety
Manthia Diawara, Touki Bouki

Week 6. Screening: Jean-Pierre Bekolos Quartier Mozart
Reading: Jonathan Haynes, African Filmmaking and the Postcolonial Predicament:
Quartier Mozart and Aristotles Plot
Brigid Sackey, The Vanishing Sexual Organ Phenomenon
Achille Mbembe and Janet Roitman, Figures of the Subject in Times of
Crisis

Week 7. Screening: Joseph Gai Ramakas Karmen Gei
Reading: Frieda Ekotto, The Erotic Tale of Karmen Gei
Lindiwe Dovey, African Incar(me)nation: Joseph Gai Ramakas Karmen
Gei from African Film and Literature

Globalization and Human Rights
Week 8. Screening: Cheikh Oumar Sissokos Finzan
Reading: Josef Gugler, Finzan, 1990, in African Film: Re-Imagining a Continent
Roy Armes, Individual Struggle, African Filmmaking

Week 9. Screening: Abderrahmane Sissakos Bamako
Reading: Ezra Winton, Bamako Film Puts the World Bank on Trial and Wins
Tejumola Olaniyan, Of Rations and Rationalities: The World Bank,
African Hunger, and Abderrahmane Sissako's Bamako
Jacqueline Maingard, Screening Africa in Colour: Abderrahmane
Sissako's Bamako

Week 10. Screening: Newton Aduakas Ezra; excerpts from Blood Diamond
Reading: Cheryl Sterling, Visions of War, Testaments of Peace: The Burden of
Sierra Leone
Becky Korman African Cinema: A Comparative Look at Blood
Diamond and Ezra
Greg Campbell From Pits of Despair to Altars of Love
Green-Simms, African Cinema - 3

Week 11. Screening: Raoul Pecks Lumumba
David Moore, Raoul Pecks Lumumba: History or Hagiography?
Laura Marks, Memory of Images

Week 12. Screening: Neill Blomkamps District 9
Reading: Carina Ray, Humanizing Aliens or Alienating Africans?: District 9
and the Politics of Representation
Ato Quayson, Unthinkable Nigeriana: The Social Imaginary of
District 9
Oghenetoja Okoh, A Real Sci-Fi Flick in Africa?

Popular Culture: Video Films/Music Videos
Week 13. Screening: Kenneth Nnebues Living in Bondage
Reading: Jonathan Haynes, Introduction to Nigerian Video Films
Jonathan Haynes and Onookome Okome, Evolving Popular
Media: Nigerian Video Films
Onookome Okome, Introducing the Special Issue on West
African Cinema: Africa at the Movies
Lindsey Green-Simms, The Return of Mercedes: From Ousmane
Sembne to Kenneth Nnebue

Week 14. Screening: Andy Amenchis The Master
Reading: Brian Larkin, selections from Signal and Noise: Media, Infrastructure,
and Urban Culture

Week 15. Screening: Jesse Weaver Shipleys Living the Hiplife
Reading: Jesse Weaver Shipley, Aesthetic of the Entrepreneur: Afro-Cosmopolitan
Rap and Moral Circulation in Accra, Ghana


Course Evaluation:
Participation 15%
Shot-by-shot analyses 10%
Essay # 1 20%
Essay # 2 20%
Essay # 3 20%
Weekly response papers 15%

Participation
It is expected that students will come to class prepared to contribute to class discussion and
having completed the assigned readings. Class participation grades will be determined by the
quality (not quantity) of students contributions to discussion. The participation grade will be a
factor of the following three elements: level of engagement during class discussions;
demonstrated effort throughout the semester; and improvement and progress throughout the
Green-Simms, African Cinema - 4
semester. For students who are less comfortable with speaking in large groups, I encourage you
to email me with questions and comments about the readings and to attend office hours.

Shot-by-shot analyses
Each student will be asked to present two shot-by-shot analyses to the class. Students will be
able to select a sequence of their choice (1-3 minutes) and present a detailed analysis of the types
of shots, framing, lighting, angles, etc. the director is using. The student should be able to name
the cinematic techniques and to discuss what significance they have to the film as a whole.

Essays
There will be a total of three 4-5 page critical essays required. Essay topics will be handed out in
class for the first two papers. Students are required to generate their own topic in conjunction
with the instructor for the final paper.

Weekly Response Papers
Each week students will be asked to write a brief one-page response to the film. Rather than
describing whether you find the film appealing, I would like you to comment on some of the
issues raised in the reading and to connect the film to the larger debates we are having in the
course.