Women in African Cinema: Beyond the Body Politic by Lizelle Bisschoff, Stefanie Van de Peer

Women in African Cinema: Beyond the Body Politic by Lizelle Bisschoff, Stefanie Van de Peer

Routledge 2019

Description

Women in African Cinema: Beyond the Body Politic showcases the very prolific but often marginalised presence of women in African cinema, both on the screen and behind the camera.

This book provides the first in-depth and sustained examination of women in African cinema. Films by women from different geographical regions are discussed in case studies that are framed by feminist theoretical and historical themes, and seen through an anti-colonial, philosophical, political and socio-cultural cinematic lens. A historical and theoretical introduction provides the context for thematic chapters exploring topics ranging from female identities, female friendships, women in revolutionary cinema, motherhood and daughterhood, women’s bodies, sexuality, and spirituality. Each chapter serves up a theoretical-historical discussion of the chosen theme, followed by two in-depth case studies that provide contextual and transnational readings of the films as well as outlining production, distribution and exhibition contexts. This book contributes to the feminist anti-racist revision of the canon by placing African women filmmakers squarely at the centre of African film culture.

Demonstrating the depth and diversity of the feminine or female aesthetic in African cinema, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of African cinema, media studies and African studies.

Contents

1. Women in African Cinema: Histories and Theories

2. The Multiplicity of Female Identities: Embracing Plurality

3. Female Friendships in Film: Affinities, Affiliations and Activism

4. Women in Revolution and Revolutionary Cinema

5. Daughters and Their Mothers: Between Conflict and Acceptance

6. African Women's Bodies: Journeys into Womanhood

7. (Re)defining Female Sexuality through Film

8. Spiritual Pathways to Emancipation

“Over the years, Stef and I had talked about writing a book and in 2017 she contacted me and said, “Let’s do this book.” So, it came out of more than a decade-long interest in women in African cinema so we combined our areas of specialities and started writing a book. It was an interesting experience to co-author a book. It had to have this collaboration.”

“It is also necessary to talk about my own identity. We’ve had a lot of concerns about being two White women writing about African cinema. I’m white South African and Stef is Belgian. Stef has her own history with how Belgium has denied its intervention in the Congo. It was one of the most brutal and severe occupations of an African country and Stef used to say to me that she never learned about these things growing up in Belgium. So for both of us it came out of our own backgrounds of wanting to address that, while also being aware of the legitimacy to write about something that you’re not a part of. We talk about our positionality in the introduction of the book because we felt that it’s very important to acknowledge that we are privileged.”

Interview with Lizelle Bisschoff by Mimi Anagli, Agnès Films, May 2020

ALSO SEE:

Podcasts: Women in African Cinema Podcast Series

https://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/podcasts/women-in-african-cinema/

This podcast series is based on the book Women in African Cinema: Beyond the Body Politics, by Lizelle Bisschoff and Stefanie Van de Peer (Routledge, 2019). 

    

1: Women in African Cinema: An Introduction - 11 May 2020 

2a: Women in North African Cinema - 12 May 2020

2b: Women in Francophone West African Cinema - 13 May 2020

3: Personal Stories, Public Histories: Women's Filmmaking in the DRC and South Africa - 26 May 2020

Lizelle Bisschoff is a researcher and curator of African film and founder of the Africa in Motion (AiM) Film Festival, an annual African film festival taking place in Scotland. She is currently Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at the University of Glasgow.

Stefanie Van de Peer is researcher and programmer of African and Arab cinema. Her award-winning collection Animation in the Middle East came out in 2017. She programmes for film festivals worldwide and works for Africa in Motion. She is Research Fellow at the University of Exeter and Lecturer in Film and Media at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh.