Africa's lost classics: introduction

Citation

Bisschoff L & Murphy D (2007) Africa's lost classics: introduction. Screen, 48 (4), pp. 493-499. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjm050

Abstract
Accounts of African film history have often been extremely selective in their discussion of work from the 1960s and early 1970s, the first decade of sub-Saharan African cinema, which has meant that a range of important films from this early period have fallen into undeserved obscurity. Over the past two years we have been engaged in a project that turns the spotlight on some of these 'lost classics', and explores how a more sustained engagement with these works might allow us to develop more complex approaches to African film history.1 The primary aim of the project is to bring these rare and little-known films from the 1960s - by both major and neglected African directors - to the attention of theorists and critics, as well as the general viewing public. The four 'lost classics' selected were screened as part of Africa in Motion (AiM), the first Edinburgh African film festival, in October 2006. The complete programme consisted of twenty-five films from all over the African continent (shorts, documentaries and feature films from the 1950s to the 2000s), and the Lost Classics programme played an important role in giving audiences a sense of the sheer variety of sub-Saharan African filmmaking right from its inception. Even for those relatively knowledgeable about African cinema, the Lost Classics programme revealed the aesthetic, intellectual and political richness of so much cinematic practice during the early period of sub-Saharan African filmmaking, a body of work that is simply glossed over in many overviews of the field.

Keywords
1950; 1970; 2000; AFRICA; Attention; audience; body; Cinema; COMPLEX; DECADE; engagement; Feature; FIELD; HISTORY; motion; PERIOD; Practice; primary; RANGE; Role; work

Journal
Screen: Volume 48, Issue 4