The history of documentary in Africa -- The Colonial era

Restricted until 05 Dec. 2011. This thesis seeks to write a comprehensive history of documentary film in Africa, from the beginning of the cinema until the eve of independence in the late 1950s. It looks at documentary practice and theory as deployed in and on the African continent during the colonial era, covering the early, silent, and sound eras. Focusing on the British and French colonial empires, the thesis attempts to produce both an archeology and epistemology of documentary film in the period covered in Africa. Using textual analysis, historical contextualization, and symptomatic readings, the thesis explores the nature, character and features of the relationship between documentary and colonialism in an attempt to answer the question as to whether documentary film today carries within it aspects of the episteme of colonialism.; Among other things, the thesis examines the work and trajectories of some of the canonical figures and moments in the history of the documentary, from the Lumière brothers to the British documentary movement, and casts new perspectives on them. By looking at them through the lens of the colonial, the thesis interrogates many of the orthodoxies of the discipline, ranging from theories and histories of early cinema, to consensual representations of the Griersonians, to attempts at theorization of documentary itself, especially in its early period.; The thesis also brings into the film studies discourse new paradigms in the discussion of the history of cinema, and thus of documentary in Africa through an examination of the often neglected yet highly polysemic nineteenth century. This line of inquiry brings forth the staging of a space of agency for African continent throughout the colonial period until its end. This makes it possible to begin a re-examination of the history of documentary with Africa as a point of departure, and demonstrates that such an approach is theoretically fruitful, historically desirable and temporally overdue.