Decolonising Religion in African Film (original) (raw)
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At the beginning of the twenty-first century, we are confronted by two entwined global developments: the resurgence of religion in the public sphere and the spread of audiovisual mass media. All over the world, religious movements and audiovisual media increasingly engage and overlap as part and parcel of attempts to address and captivate an ever-expanding public. As both religion and film-film understood here in a broad sense as audiovisual technologies, such as cinema, television, and video, which produce moving images-work together and act upon each other, it is increasingly difficult to differentiate the two as distinct fields of activity and meaning. Whether in Hollywood, Bombay, or Lagos, religion and film are involved in complicated and productive relationships. The boundaries between modern mass entertainment and sacred traditions such as Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity are continually being redrawn and blurred. That religion and filmic media are now so reciprocally implicated in such new and powerful ways calls for a more rigorous and nuanced scholarly engagement.
Mediating Transcendence: Popular Film, Visuality, and Religious Experience in West Africa
2008
Since the 1990s the popularity of locally produced video films has steadily spread across West Africa. In this paper I explore and explain several factors that I trace back to aspects of culture and tradition that I consider conditional for this unprecedented success. Rituals and theatrical aspects of traditional religion find their expression in entertaining aspects of film-watching and in the visuality of film. I argue that African cultures are not only oral but also eminently visual. African visuality focuses on the perception of patterns and meaning rather than on realistic representations. An example of this can be found in special effects that are used to communicate the presence of transcendence in popular films. Such films have become an integral part of urban African culture and help to maintain an integrated worldview where modernity, Christianity and traditional religion all have their distinct, but nonetheless tightly linked spheres. Film generally mediates religious experience to its audiences and acts as a transcendent mediator between the local or traditional and the global or modern.
Cultural Identity And Religious Representation In African Films
Wannan maqala ta yi nazari a kan amfani da al'adu da addinan mutanen Afirka a cikin finafinansu, inda ta yi bayani da kuma fito da finafinan da suke xauke da irin waxannan al'adu da addinai a finafinan Nijeriya guda biyu, finafinan qasa da kuma na Hausa. Sannan aka yi bayanin ire-iren bambance-bambancen da ke tsakanin masana'antun guda biyu ta fuskar addini da al'ada da kuma aiwatarwa.
They Will Call me the Black God: Imaging Christianity and the Bible in African Film
2022
This thesis explores the ways in which African filmmakers have historically addressed Christianity and the Bible on the continent. It begins with the premise that on the African continent, marked political films (Mazierska) are embedded in transnational dynamics involving movements of economic and symbolic capital, ideas, discourses and multiple publics. Within these movements, questions of identity, and questions, of the cultural, political or religious are explored in conversation and encounter with Others. With this premise in mind, I ask how the films address Christianity and interpret the Bible; how they frame the religious in relation specific historical, cultural and political contexts; and what are the potential implications of the transnational dynamics and circulation of films. Although much research has focused on the representation of religions in African video and screen media especially in the 2000s, surprisingly little has been dedicated to earlier cinematic expressions and political cinema. To contribute to the history of the cinematic treatment of religion on the continent, four fictional films were chosen as case-studies: La Chapelle, (The Chapel, dir. Jean-Michel Tchissoukou, 1980, Republic of Congo), Au Nom du Christ (In the Name of Christ, dir. Roger Gnoan M’Bala, 1993, Côte d’Ivoire), La Génèse (Genesis, dir. Cheick Oumar Sissoko, 1999, Mali) and Son of Man (dir. Mark Dornford-May, 2006, South-Africa). The analyses reveal that filmmakers have portrayed and interpreted the presence of Christianity and the Bible in relation to legacies of colonialism and decolonisation. Their attitudes narrate the presence of Christianity and the Bible in terms of resistance, suspicion, negotiation, and appropriation. In doing so they oscillate between distancing from and rapprochement with developments in African Christianity and theology. The films’ narratives and aesthetics reflect tensions around the creation of discourses of African authenticity, but also around religious modernity. The political framing roots the contextualisation of biblical narratives in social and historical analyses that strive to provide responses to local instances of oppressions as well as a platform for a more universalist reading addressed to global publics. Finally, the films contribute to the construction of African religious realities and imageries and to the broader image of Africa.
THE CINEMA OF AFRICA: A SUCCINCT ELUCIDATION
THE CINEMA OF AFRICA: A SUCCINCT ELUCIDATION, 2023
Film came to Africa almost immediately after its invention. But Africans didn't get the opportunity to access it until the eve of the imperialist rules within the regions of the continent. This essay aims at identifying the margins and definitions of African Cinema, from prehistoric, historic and post modern points of view. In a way, it also tried to define which film is African or not. It uses a Qualitative approach to analytically draw it findings and concludes that African Cinema is a conglomerate of many national cinemas within the continent and not a single branded cinema as often portrayed in some international cinema discourses.
CULTURE, MEDIA & FILM | Message films in Africa: A look into the past ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Message film-making has characterised much of films produced in post-independent Kenya. The country produced very few films in the 1980s, when indigenous film-making actually began to take root. Liberalisation of the economy, embracement of the digital technology and democratization in the 1990s paved way for a more stable film culture in the decade. A more promising growth of the film industry has been largely witnessed since the turn of the 21st century. Through this period, I note a strong tendency to produce films that are loaded with social messages deemed urgent and important to the target audience. In making these films, the film-makers hope to make a positive impact in the lives of the target audiences. These films tend to valorise the message, sometimes, neglecting the basic filmic codes, a practice that renders the films less entertaining. This endangers the growth of the industry since local films find very stiff competition from foreign films that are common on Kenyan screens. This study therefore investigates possible roots of message film-making in Africa that directly influence the tendencies in Kenya by making references to other African countries' film experiences. My assumption is that Kenya's cultural experiences are shared by other African countries.
The Representation of African Traditional Religion and Culture in Nigeria Popular Films
RELIGION, MEDIA AND POLITICS IN AFRICA
One of the ways by which religious rituals communicate in African society is by maintaining cohesion in the culture. They connect participants to richer meanings and larger forces of their community. Even in representational models, rituals create solidarity in the form of subjective experiences of sharing the same meaningful world which is attained by participants through the condensed nature of symbols used therein. Traditional religion is one ritual that despite the influence of westernization and scientific developments in Africa, still holds meaningful implications in people’s everyday life. Thus, from day break to evening, people have religious rituals with which they communicate with their God or gods, deities and ancestors. Also from weeks to seasons, months to years, there are festivals and rituals both in private and in public situations which the African still celebrate in connection with the ‘living dead’ or those in the ‘spirit world’. This paper by means of nuanced tex...