United Nations
International Day for People of African Descent
in celebration of the extraordinary contributions of the African diaspora around the world
In honor of the United Nations commemoration of people of African descent, the African Women in Cinema Blog features the Closeup in Black Camera: An International Film Journal 15. 2 (Spring 2024): The Africas/Diasporas of Women in the Evolution of a TransAfrican Film Practice and Critical Inquiry curated by Beti Ellerson
Excerpted from introduction:
The objectives of the Close-Up, The Africas/ Diasporas of Women in the Evolution of a TransAfrican Film Practice and Critical Inquiry: to recover, to chronicle, to affirm, to reimagine even, African/Diasporan women’s cinematic world-making, indeed self-making—envisioning the manners in which they devise, create, make, a space, a universe, a domain, a world; within which they may tell/relate their stories—storytelling as a project of world-making through cinema.
The Close-Up asks questions regarding the tenets of an African/Diasporan cinematic practice/tradition shaped by women: its beginnings, the forces that compelled, facilitated and informed it, the requisite approaches needed to formulate it, and the propositions on which to explore its cultural, political, and social manifestations.
The title “The Africas/Diasporas of Women in the Evolution of a TransAfrican Film Practice and Critical Inquiry” calls attention to the multiplicity of locations, providing a place for the explication of African/diasporic histories (historical and new Diasporas), as well as an elaboration of the peregrinations as well as the negotiation of hybrid, indeed symbiotic, identities of so many of these women.
The Close-Up comes together under myriad themes, in order to draw from the intersectional, multifarious aspects of women’s transAfrican film practice, histories and critical inquiry.
The Close-Up is in the memory of Sarah Maldoror and Safi Faye.
The Close-Up asks questions regarding the tenets of an African/Diasporan cinematic practice/tradition shaped by women: its beginnings, the forces that compelled, facilitated and informed it, the requisite approaches needed to formulate it, and the propositions on which to explore its cultural, political, and social manifestations.
The title “The Africas/Diasporas of Women in the Evolution of a TransAfrican Film Practice and Critical Inquiry” calls attention to the multiplicity of locations, providing a place for the explication of African/diasporic histories (historical and new Diasporas), as well as an elaboration of the peregrinations as well as the negotiation of hybrid, indeed symbiotic, identities of so many of these women.
The Close-Up comes together under myriad themes, in order to draw from the intersectional, multifarious aspects of women’s transAfrican film practice, histories and critical inquiry.
The Close-Up is in the memory of Sarah Maldoror and Safi Faye.
Read the introduction in its entirety: https://africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com/2024/06/closeup-africas-diasporas-of-women-black-camera.html