About

The African Film Database is a collaborative digital project that seeks to create a catalog of films from and about the continent of Africa. As a prolific and constantly evolving field, the study of African film also becomes a point of entry into the history of colonialism and decolonization, artistic and literary emergences, spaces of resistance, innovative cinematic practices, and global conditions of production and distribution.

This database has three goals:

1. It is an ongoing, continually updated work that aims to aid scholars by consolidating as much information as possible on individual films. The database is searchable by country, year, director and theme.

2. With an eye toward digital literacy and the opening up and availability of the discourse on African cinema, this database mobilizes university students to research, refine and enter blog posts on individual films. While it may not be possible to watch every film, the project urges students to engage with the deeper dynamics of postcolonial African studies and African New Media studies, and the dissemination of film within that. It also exposes them to a vast and extraordinarily dynamic world of African art and culture that is often unavailable in the mainstream.

3. African Film Database invites professors to implement this digital component in their classrooms, and thus enable the creation of a wide network of scholars engaged in the field. Built on a simple WordPress site, the database is very user friendly. The assigned blogging work can satisfy a digital activity component in your classroom and fosters research, introduces students to theoretical approaches and facilitates an introductory understanding of basic blogging platforms. Professors can participate with their undergraduate or graduate classrooms in updating, researching and assembling information on this website.

 

Created and developed by Bhakti Shringarpure.

Content edited by Anna Brown.