Africa: New Film Texts
Appears Malian scholar and NYU professor Manthia Diawara 1992 definitive book on African cinema now has a sequel. African Film: New Forms of Aesthetics and Politics picks up the story from the 90's to today, focusing on "new trends, new cinematic languages and modes of production," and even more important, "on the departure from nationalism and social realism," and the emergence of the Nollywood film industry, a phenomenon better understood, argues Indian University professor Akin Adesokan, through the lens of 80s IMF Structural Adjustment Programs that crippled the Nigerian welfare state and left Nigerians to their own devices.
Coming out later in the year is Viewing African Cinema in the Twenty-First Century: Art Films and the Nollywood Video Revolution, consisting of essays edited by Mahir Saul and Ralph A. Austen, comparing the Francophone art house films of 70s and 80s to today's rough and tumble Nollywood mode of production.
