‘Marginality and Fragility in African Cinemas’

For over a half century, filmmakers on the African continent and in the diaspora have contended with the legacies of colonial policies and their marginalizing effects on the people, spaces and cultures of the continent. Using film, they have repeatedly argued that fragilization and marginalization of Africans provided the mainstay of colonial conquest and domination. Whether the French civilizing mission or the British Indirect rule, the aim was to push local African populations to the sidelines of their own lives, territories and histories. Thus, as directors, militant artists and critics, filmmakers undertook to accelerate the process of invalidating various types of social exclusion, foster new agencies, suggest new identities and promote new societies. The papers in this collection address the film aesthetics and discursive strategies adopted by filmmakers from different parts of the continent to dissect and counter such marginalizations.