This course is designed to foster cultural awareness and literacy about post-colonial French-speaking Africa while providing introductory training in film analysis and Francophone culture. It will also provide continuous training in the French language since class discussions assignments will be conducted in French.
The course will explore sub-Saharan French-speaking cinema, which, since its advent after the independences from France in the early Sixties, has been extremely dynamic and daring and yet remains unknown to most Westerners.
Scholars, such as Melissa Thackway, agree that: “Francophone African directors have clearly appropriated a medium denied to them under colonial rule. Films from the sub-Saharan Francophone African countries, most of which are situated in West Africa, demonstrate that local filmmakers use film’s representational capacities to produce a range of alternative, challenging images of the continent and its people. Individual directors have developed a variety of styles that draw on universal film techniques as well as African narrative and artistic traditions to forge exciting new cinematic codes.” (Thackway, 1)
We will thus discuss and analyze the issues brought up in this challenging statement, from decolonization to post-colonial cultural economy and from traditional African narrative strategies to new and unconventional images. The selection of movies (weekly showings, increasing to 2 movies/week in the second half of the semester) for the course exposes students to new voices, perspectives and representations.
- Teacher: Caroline Fache