Description

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New African Cinema examines the pressing social, cultural, economic, and historical issues explored by African filmmakers from the early post-colonial years into the new millennium. Offering an overview of the development of postcolonial African cinema since the 1960s, Valérie K. Orlando highlights the variations in content and themes that reflect the socio-cultural and political environments of filmmakers and the cultures they depict in their films.  
 
Orlando illuminates the diverse themes evident in the works of filmmakers such as Ousmane Sembène’s Ceddo (Senegal, 1977), Sarah Maldoror’s Sambizanga (Angola, 1972), Assia Djebar’s La Nouba des femmes de Mont Chenoua (The Circle of women of Mount Chenoua, Algeria, 1978), Zézé Gamboa’s The Hero (Angola, 2004) and Abderrahmane Sissako’s Timbuktu (Mauritania, 2014), among others. Orlando also considers the influence of major African film schools and their traditions, as well as European and American influences on the marketing and distribution of African film. For those familiar with the polemics of African film, or new to them, Orlando offers a cogent analytical approach that is engaging.
 

About the Author

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VALÉRIE K. ORLANDO is a professor of French and Francophone literatures and cultures and head of the French and Italian department at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is the author of several books, including the forthcoming, The Algerian New Novel: The Poetics of a Modern Nation, 1950-1979.
 

Praise For…

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"New African Cinema manages the formidable task of depicting the depth, breadth, and great diversity of cinema on the African continent by highlighting different genres and themes. This book will appeal to anyone who is interested in film."
— Cécile Accilien

"An impeccable introduction to the exciting films being produced today, New African Cinema delineates the important broad distinctions between Anglophone and Francophone movies, and the finer lines between North African, sub-Saharan, West African, Maghrebian, and other regional bodies of film."
— Kenneth W. Harrow

"Valérie K. Orlando offers an excellent, highly engaging analysis of twenty-first century cinema from and about Africa, examining some of the most pressing issues facing the continent today."
— Hakim Abderrezak