African Cinema(s) and Theorizations: Arts, Scholarship & Debates

Abstract

Much as the beginning of African cinema is about decolonization, one way of approaching its current structure and operations is by investigating the complex web of its new postcolonial realities. If its past can be said to ideologically focus on counteracting stereotypical (mis)presentations of Africa, its present-day scenario is witnessing a hybrid of cinematic practices, digitally engineered to speak about the continent in varied tongues: politically, nationally, commercially and otherwise. The thrust of this article is exploring different trends that have characterized the cinema(s) of Africa in past and present times in terms of artistry, scholarship and theorizations. It uses the historical analytical method to explore how old nationalist celluloid-based film industries seem to have now yielded way to a digitally revolutionized system, bringing about an avalanche of new ancillary film industries after the Nigerian Nollywood model. Thus, it argues that to the extent that cinemas across Africa have become digital and filmless presently, scholarly theorizations and debates around their praxis ought also to change in order to account for nuances shrouding their representations.