Contemporary African Screen Worlds
Deep Insights
Durham: Duke University Press (2025), xvii, 356 pp.
Contains filmography pp. 307-310, bibliogr. pp. 311-336, index
ISBN 978-1-4780-3142-0 (pbk); 978-1-4780-6041-3 (ebook)
"Contemporary African Screen Worlds brings together a new generation of African screen media scholars who explore and theorize the dynamic, interactive screen worlds that have arisen in contemporary Africa due to dramatic global changes in technology. Drawing on long-term fieldwork, extensive interviews, and specific case studies, the contributors bring to life the complex materialities and entanglements of film spectatorship, fandom, production, and circulation in Africa. They particularly attend to the interfaces among film audiences, actors, makers, platforms, and screens both small and large. Engaging with more than a dozen national contexts across the continent, the book reveals the diversity of African screen media practices and the creativity and agency of the people who passionately generate them, from film craftworkers in Nigeria and film students in Ghana to film fans in Rwanda and Burkina Faso. By focusing on the work of powerful platforms (such as Netflix and MTVShuga) and ordinary people (such as domestic workers watching Nollywood films in rural Kenya), this volume grapples with the effects and affects of digitization, mobile screens, media convergence, and the televisual turn in Africa." (Publisher description)
Introduction: Exploring Screen Worlds / Lindiwe Dovey, Añulika Agina, And Michael W. Thomas, 1
PART I. MOBILE SCREEN WORLDS AND THE TELEVISUAL TURN IN AFRICA
1 We Need New Screens: MTV Shuga Naija, Youth Sexual Agency, and the “Mobile Screen” [Nigeria] / Temitayo Olofinlua, 19
2 Maîtresse d’un homme marié: Retracing Womanhood in Senegalese Screen Worlds / Estrella Sendra, 35
3 Netflix: The Enabling Disruptor in Nigeria / Añulika Agina, 53
4 Examining the “Opportunities”: M-Net’s Zambezi Magic Channel and the Emerging Zambian Film Industry / Elastus Mambwe, 75
PART II. CRAFTING THE PRODUCTION AND CIRCULATION OF AFRICAN SCREEN WORLDS
5 From Infrastructures to Treehouses: Circulations in Nollywood Distribution, Locations, and Craft / Alexander Bud, 91
6 Entrepreneurialism and Enterprise: Film Students Redefining Ghana’s Creative Landscape / Dennis-Brook Prince Lotsu, 113
7 South Africa’s Female Only Filmmakers Project: From On-Screen to Calling the Shots / Lindiwe Dovey, 127
8 Female Film Entrepreneurs in Ghana: Shirley Frimpong-Manso and Evelyn Asampana in Focus / Robin Steedman and Rashida Resario, 139
PART III. ENGENDERING SCREEN REPRESENTATION, SPECTATORSHIP, AND CURATION
9 Domestic Disturbance: Afro-Feminist Poetics in Dilman Dila’s Ugandan “Horror Romances” / Nedine Moonsamy, 153
10 Fashioning African Screen Worlds: La noire de . . . and Les saignantes / Alexandra Grieve, 167
11 Nollywood Cinema and Its Housemaids’ Fandom: The Case of Eldoret, Kenya / Solomon Waliaula, 185
12 Archival Films in Contemporary Archives: Fragmented Legacies of a North African Women’s Film Heritage / Stefanie Van de Peer, 201
PART IV. THEATRICAL SCREEN WORLDS: IN THE CHURCH, CINEMAS, VIDEO HALLS, AND HILLS
13 Cinema in the Church: The Evangelical Film Worldview in Nigeria / Elizabeth Olayiwola, 217
14 Tezeta in Motion: A Glimpse into a Performative Ethiopian Screen World / Michael W. Thomas and Asteway M. Woldemichael, 233
15 Hillywood and Beyond: Forms of Spectatorship and Screen Worlds in Rwanda / Alison Macaulay, 245
16 FESPACO @ Fifty: Forms, Formats, Platforms, and African Screen Media / Pier Paolo Frassinelli, 257
PART V. TRANSNATIONAL SCREEN WORLDS: MUSIC VIDEO IN AFRICA, BEYOND, AND BACK
17 Music Video and the Transnationalism of Nigerian Screen Media: Watching Falz’s “This is Nigeria” / Femi Eromosele, 269
18 Rolling to “A-Free-Ka”: Seeing and Hearing the Transmedia Screen Worlds of Kahlil Joseph’s “Cheeba” / Joe Jackson , 283
Afterword 1. The Political Worlds of African Screen Media / Alessandro Jedlowski, 297
Afterword 2. Africa’s Contemporary Screen Media Era and Questions of Autonomy / Moradewun Adejunmobi, 301
PART I. MOBILE SCREEN WORLDS AND THE TELEVISUAL TURN IN AFRICA
1 We Need New Screens: MTV Shuga Naija, Youth Sexual Agency, and the “Mobile Screen” [Nigeria] / Temitayo Olofinlua, 19
2 Maîtresse d’un homme marié: Retracing Womanhood in Senegalese Screen Worlds / Estrella Sendra, 35
3 Netflix: The Enabling Disruptor in Nigeria / Añulika Agina, 53
4 Examining the “Opportunities”: M-Net’s Zambezi Magic Channel and the Emerging Zambian Film Industry / Elastus Mambwe, 75
PART II. CRAFTING THE PRODUCTION AND CIRCULATION OF AFRICAN SCREEN WORLDS
5 From Infrastructures to Treehouses: Circulations in Nollywood Distribution, Locations, and Craft / Alexander Bud, 91
6 Entrepreneurialism and Enterprise: Film Students Redefining Ghana’s Creative Landscape / Dennis-Brook Prince Lotsu, 113
7 South Africa’s Female Only Filmmakers Project: From On-Screen to Calling the Shots / Lindiwe Dovey, 127
8 Female Film Entrepreneurs in Ghana: Shirley Frimpong-Manso and Evelyn Asampana in Focus / Robin Steedman and Rashida Resario, 139
PART III. ENGENDERING SCREEN REPRESENTATION, SPECTATORSHIP, AND CURATION
9 Domestic Disturbance: Afro-Feminist Poetics in Dilman Dila’s Ugandan “Horror Romances” / Nedine Moonsamy, 153
10 Fashioning African Screen Worlds: La noire de . . . and Les saignantes / Alexandra Grieve, 167
11 Nollywood Cinema and Its Housemaids’ Fandom: The Case of Eldoret, Kenya / Solomon Waliaula, 185
12 Archival Films in Contemporary Archives: Fragmented Legacies of a North African Women’s Film Heritage / Stefanie Van de Peer, 201
PART IV. THEATRICAL SCREEN WORLDS: IN THE CHURCH, CINEMAS, VIDEO HALLS, AND HILLS
13 Cinema in the Church: The Evangelical Film Worldview in Nigeria / Elizabeth Olayiwola, 217
14 Tezeta in Motion: A Glimpse into a Performative Ethiopian Screen World / Michael W. Thomas and Asteway M. Woldemichael, 233
15 Hillywood and Beyond: Forms of Spectatorship and Screen Worlds in Rwanda / Alison Macaulay, 245
16 FESPACO @ Fifty: Forms, Formats, Platforms, and African Screen Media / Pier Paolo Frassinelli, 257
PART V. TRANSNATIONAL SCREEN WORLDS: MUSIC VIDEO IN AFRICA, BEYOND, AND BACK
17 Music Video and the Transnationalism of Nigerian Screen Media: Watching Falz’s “This is Nigeria” / Femi Eromosele, 269
18 Rolling to “A-Free-Ka”: Seeing and Hearing the Transmedia Screen Worlds of Kahlil Joseph’s “Cheeba” / Joe Jackson , 283
Afterword 1. The Political Worlds of African Screen Media / Alessandro Jedlowski, 297
Afterword 2. Africa’s Contemporary Screen Media Era and Questions of Autonomy / Moradewun Adejunmobi, 301
