AFRICA

Ethnographic film in colonial Africa

Fishermen on the Chari river – ‘À travers le Cameroun, le Gabon et le Congo’ (1928) – dir. Jean d’Esme and René Moreau

Many of the early ethnographic films shot in Africa were made by European filmmakers under of the auspices of, or at least with the permission of the various colonial regimes that then dominated the continent. In addition, a number of US filmmakers visited the continent in this era, also producing a certain amount of footage of ethnographic interest.

Filmmakers working in the French African colonies were by far the most active, though a few films were also produced in the colonies governed by Germany prior to the First World War and in the Belgian Congo. Although British colonies in Africa sometimes had their own film units, these were primarily concerned with making films about educational and health-related topics rather than traditional indigenous custom. Meanwhile, British anthropologists working in Africa during the colonial era showed almost no interest in film as an ethnographic medium. Films made in the Portuguese and Spanish African colonies also appear to have been very few.

Discussion – Francophone film-makers in colonial Africa prior to the Second World War

See also the article published in 2020 in English the journal Visual Anthropology. An earlier version was published in French in the Journal des africanistes.

AFRICA – A SELECTION OF FILMS

  • Films followed by an asterisk are those for which a text has been written, which although not necessarily definitive, will give a good idea of the final form of the post. The others are only stubs that will be developed later. 

1895-1920

1920-1944

After 1945