AFRICAN WOMEN IN CINEMA BLOG

The purpose of the African Women in Cinema Blog is to provide a space to discuss diverse topics relating to African women in cinema--filmmakers, actors, producers, and all film professionals. The blog is a public forum of the Centre for the Study and Research of African Women in Cinema.

Le Blog sur les femmes africaines dans le cinéma est un espace pour l'échange d'informations concernant les réalisatrices, comédiennes, productrices, critiques et toutes professionnelles dans ce domaine. Ceci sert de forum public du Centre pour l'étude et la recherche des femmes africaines dans le cinémas.

27 October 2026

The African Women in Cinema Blog commemorates the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage. 27 October

The African Women in Cinema Blog commemorates

the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage. 27 October

https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/world-day-audio-visual-heritage-27-october

Image: UNESCO

The day of observation, initiated by UNESCO provides an occasion to raise general awareness of the need to acknowledge the importance of audiovisual documents and to take urgent measures to preserve them.

This year’s theme of the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, "Your Window to the World", highlights the essential role of audiovisual heritage in connecting and understanding societies across the world.

Audiovisual archives tell us stories about people’s lives and cultures from all over the world. They represent a priceless heritage which is an affirmation of our collective memory and a valuable source of knowledge since they reflect the cultural, social and linguistic diversity of our communities. They help us grow and comprehend the world we all share. Conserving this heritage and ensuring it remains accessible to the public and future generations is a vital goal for all memory institutions as well as the public at large.

African women in cinema are actively engaged in the documentation of their societies through the medium of the audiovisual, as well as safeguarding these documents through archival methods and other measures.

Following is a selection of articles published on the African Women in Cinema Blog:

African Women in Professional Film Organizations: FEPACI

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2009/03/african-women-in-professional-film.html

Recidak '96 : Quand les femmes du cinéma se mobilisent | When women of cinema take action

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2009/04/recidak-96-quand-les-femmes-du-cinema.html

African Women and Film Spectatorship: An Early History | La spectatrice africaine et son regard sur le cinéma : une préhistoire

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2009/05/african-women-and-film-spectatorship.html

Centre for the Study and Research of African Women in Cinema

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2009/07/center-for-study-and-research-of.html

Women’s presence in African Screens | La presence de la femme dans Ecrans d’Afrique - 1991-1998

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2009/12/womens-presence-in-african-screen-la.html

Sara Gubara: Her Father’s Eyes (Sudan)

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2010/12/sara-gubara-her-fathers-eyes.html

Sisters of the Screen: Reflections on a Decade

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2010/12/sisters-of-screen-reflections-on-decade.html

Mahen Bonetti: The New York African Film Festival

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2011/04/mahen-bonetti-new-york-african-film.html

18 October 2026

Film Africa : African Women and Cinema, centrepiece symposium - 24 October

Film Africa :

African Women and Cinema, centrepiece symposium

24 October @ 8:00 am - 12:00 pm

https://www.filmafrica.org/event/twende-african-women-and-cinema-symposium/

Description:

Twende (let’s go): African Women and Cinema is the centrepiece symposium of Film Africa 2026, presented with BFI Southbank. Filmmakers, producers, curators, archivists and cultural practitioners come together for five public conversations:

-Reclaiming the History: African Women Who Shaped Cinema

-Who Owns the Story? Women, Authorship and Representation

-From Africa to the World: Funding, Festivals and Power

-The Archive Is Not Neutral: Preserving African Women's Cinema

-A New Generation: Where Does African Women's Cinema Go From Here?

Symposium

The past: Salem Mekuria, Moderator: Audrey Brown

The image: Rama Thiaw, Moderator: Desta Haile

The industry: Virginie Besson-Silla, Moderator: Abiba Coulibaly

The archive: Zineb Sedira, Anita Afonu, Moderator: Esi Eshun

The future: Olive Nwosu, Jihan K, Moderator: Nadia Denton

17 October 2026

The African Women in Cinema Blog celebrates International Day of the Intangible Cultural Heritage - 17 October

The African Women in Cinema Blog celebrates International Day of the Intangible Cultural Heritage - 17 October

UNESCO describes the “intangible cultural heritage” as practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. This intangible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation to generation, is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history, and provides them with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity. For the purposes of this Convention, consideration will be given solely to such intangible cultural heritage as is compatible with existing international human rights instruments, as well as with the requirements of mutual respect among communities, groups and individuals, and of sustainable development. https://ich.unesco.org/en/convention

African women, cinema and cultural heritage

African women screen practitioners have played an important role in the promotion and preservation of African cultural heritages. Moreover, their engagement as cultural producers of screen culture ensures the visualization of the vast cultural treasures of the African continent.

Following are relevant articles on practices of cultural heritage on the African Women in Cinema Blog:

https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2010/01/horria-saihi-portrait.html

Chantal Bagilishya: "Special Tribute to one of Africa’s treasures in the world of cinema" by Seipati Bulane Hopa
https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2009/10/seipati-bulane-hopa-chantal-bagilishya.html

16 October 2026

Miu Miu présente Geste de consolation, un projet imaginé par Alice Diop | Gesture of consolation, a project by Alice Diop

Miu Miu présente Geste de consolation, un projet imaginé par Alice Diop

https://www.miumiu.com/fr/fr/miumiu-club/special-projects/geste-de-consolation.html

Image: Miu Miu

Description :

« Geste de Consolation » se concentre sur une seule question qui traverse l’ensemble de l’œuvre de Diop en tant que cinéaste, la déployant ici sous la forme d’une scénographie multimédia. « Je souhaite que l’exposition que j’organise en tant que commissaire soit centrée sur les actes de consolation conçus par des artistes femmes noires, chacune dans sa propre discipline, afin de réparer les torts causés par le regard fétichisant auquel des siècles d’histoire de l’art nous ont confinées », déclare Diop. « Geste de Consolation » devient un chœur qui célèbre la créativité noire et s’interroge sur la manière dont le regard s’est constitué à partir des représentations mêmes qu’il affronte, images qui continuent de hanter et de façonner le moment présent.

"Geste de Consolation" focuses on the one question that traverses Alice Diop’s corpus of work as a filmmaker; deploying it here in the form of a multimedia scenography. "My desire is that the exhibition that I curate centers on the acts of consolation conceived by black women artists, each in their own discipline, in order to repair the wrongs caused by the fetishizing gaze in which centuries of art history have confined us," declares Alice Diop. "Geste de Consolation" becomes a choir that celebrates black creativity and questions the manner in which the gaze was constructed from the very representations that confronts it, images that continue to manifest itself and hence, shape the present moment.

Le Monde: At the Palais d'Iéna, filmmaker Alice Diop showcases the black women artists who have "strengthened" her

From October 21 to 25, the filmmaker Alice Diop will be entrusted with the keys to the Palais d'Iéna, an invitation by Miuccia Prada [head designer of Prada and founder of Miu Miu], as part of the Art Basel Paris contemporary art fair. Intermingling the intimate and the collective, her exhibition is dedicated in large part of black women, such as the sculptor Simone Leigh.

"I turned to the women who have inspired me over the past three years, a pivotal period for me. I had constructed my cinema on the desire to make a case for my formative years growing up as a black woman in France. I needed to be heard, to render justice to this violence, this anger. However, now, I no longer need to convince. I have been strengthened by the works of these women. To showcase them is for me a gesture that is at the same time very personal and very collective."

Source, translated from French: https://www.lemonde.fr/m-styles/article/2026/10/18/au-palais-d-iena-la-cineaste-alice-diop-met-en-lumiere-les-artistes-noires-qui-l-ont-fortifiee_6797043_4497319.html

15 October 2026

The African Women in Cinema Blog celebrates International Day of Rural Women - Oct 15

The African Women in Cinema Blog celebrates

International Day of Rural Women - Oct 15

Achieving gender equality and empowering women is not only the right thing to do but is a critical ingredient in the fight against extreme poverty, hunger and climate change.

Women are responsible for half of the world’s food production while working as environmental and biodiversity stewards.

Under the theme “The Rise of Rural Women: Building Resilient Futures with Beijing+30,” this International Day promoted by UN Women seeks to shed light on the inequalities they still face; advocate for their recognition and participation in decision-making; demand stronger social protection systems; and reduce the digital divide. The commemoration aligns with the spirit of Beijing+30, a global plan for gender equality focused on eradicating poverty, achieving climate justice, and ensuring the full participation of all women and girls in sustainable development. Wherever they live. (https://www.un.org/en/observances/rural-women-day)

Safi Faye, ethnologist, cineaste, peasant, mother—she claims these intersecting selves with pride. This simultaneity of identities exemplifies the multiplicity of her life in the same way that she reflects them in her films and their characters. Hence, such a portrait shows the interconnection of her experiences—whether in Africa, the countryside, Europe, while demystifying conceptions of African women as a whole—and in particular rural-dwelling African women. Throughout her life and through her films, empowering, giving voice, has been her leitmotif.

What her films show is that the lives of peasants do matter. They have agency, a voice, stories to tell and ideas about life and living. When Safi went there to study and film in the 1970s, she went as a native daughter, as she proudly states, “je suis paysanne” (I am a peasant). During the film production process she integrates the camera into the scene. The native daughter has come to film, she sits in her place and listens. And so does the camera.

She ends Kaddu Beykat (1975) in this way: “This letter is from me, all the rest is from my farmer family; I want to thank them…These are the words of the peasant, kaddu beykat. I dedicate my film to my grandfather, who was a farmer all of his life and who died eleven days after the shooting. I end my letter with a warm farewell.”

Safi Faye’s films are first and foremost a homage to the peasantry, the rural world, of people whose tool for survival and making a living is the land: to work is to draw from and replenish the earth, the terrain, the soil.

Excerpted from:“I dared to make a film”: A Tribute to the Life and Work of Safi Faye by Beti Ellerson, Black Camera: An International Film Journal 15. 1 (Fall 2023).

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