Francophone African Women Documentary Filmmakers

Suzanne Crosta is Professor of French at McMaster University. She teaches contemporary African, Asian and Caribbean literatures and cinemas in French with a focus on ecocriticism, childhood/life narratives, postcolonialism, ethics, migration, violence and genocide. She has lectured widely at various universities in Africa, Asia, Europe, South America and the U.S.A in these disciplines. Her articles have appeared in Callaloo, Critical Interventions: Journal of African Art History and Visual Culture, Itinéraires et Contacts de cultures, Présence Francophone, Review in Feminist Research, Tangence, Thamyris, Voix plurielles among others. She is also the author of books and edited volumes on African and Caribbean literatures written in French. Currently, she is collaborating with Sada Niang and Alexie Tcheuyap on African cinemas and documentary filmmaking practices with CRSH/SSHRC funding support.Sada Niang is Professor of francophone literatures and cinemas in the Department of French at the University of Victoria. He has Published Cinéma et littérature en Afrique francophone (1997), Djibril Diop Mambéty un cinéaste à contre courant (2002), Nationalist African cinemas: Legacy and Transformations (2014), co-edited two special issues of Presence francophone (2001 & 2008), a collection of essays on Ousmane Sembene (2010) and a special issue of critical Interventions (2018) on African documentaries. Niang has also widely published on francophone African and Caribbean literatures.Alexie Tcheuyap, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is Professor of French and Vice-Dean at the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto. His publications include Avoir peur. Insécurité et roman et Afrique francophone (with Hervé Tchumkam, 2019), Autoritarisme, presse et violence au Cameroun, (2014) and Postnationalist African Cinemas (2011).

"This impressive volume indexes the historical, political, and cultural roles played by African women documentarians from North and West Africa. The editors and featured authors brilliantly tackle a wide array of topics, from marginalization and violence to female subjectivity and human rights, and in the process, they recalibrate the parameters of the documentary genre itself. This is a crucial and welcome intervention in the wider field of postcolonial cinema—strongly recommended!"—Vlad Dima, Syracuse University"Francophone African Women Documentary Filmmakers is an important contribution to the burgeoning sub-discipline of African Women in Cinema Studies as well as the ever-growing discourse in women's film studies and scholarship on African cinema that include African women filmmakers' experiences. The contributors draw from an eclectic selection of films, which allows both the novice readership and those seasoned in the discipline to (re)discover the wide-ranging cinematic practice of African women documentarians."—Beti Ellerson, Centre for the Study and Research of African Women in Cinema"This groundbreaking anthology is an important contribution to the fields of African Studies, Francophone Studies, and Film and Media Studies. The essays within are each deeply researched and collectively wide-ranging, moving from ethnographic experiments of the 1970s to contemporary activist productions, from North to West to Central Africa. As interest in nonfictional narrative continues to build both within and outside of the academy, Francophone African Women Documentary Filmmakers charts a body of work that is vital to world cinema."—Rachel Gabara, University of Georgia"Francophone African Women Documentary Filmmakers is an important contribution to the burgeoning sub-discipline of African Women in Cinema Studies as well as the ever-growing discourse in women's film studies and scholarship on African cinema that include African women filmmakers' experiences. The contributors draw from an eclectic selection of films, which allows both the novice readership and those seasoned in the discipline to (re)discover the wide-ranging cinematic practice of African women documentarians."—Beti Ellerson, Founder and Director, Centre for the Study and Research of African Women in Cinema

• Introduction, by Suzanne Crosta, Sada Niang, and Alexie Tcheuyap1. Documenting the Unseemly: Moroccan Women's Documentaries in the 2000s, by Florence Martin2. Outsiders on the Inside: Rokhaya Diallo's Les marches de la liberté as Activist Documentary, by Sheila Petty3. Challenging Documentary Practice: A Return to Safi Faye's Kaddu Beykat, by Melissa Thackway4. Revisiting the "Domestic Ethnography" Approach in Khady Sylla's Une Fenêtre ouverte, by El Hadji Moustapha Diop5. Tales of Colonels: Auteurship and Authority in Mama Colonel (2017) and This is Congo (2017), by Alexie Tcheuyap and Felix Veilleux6. Authorizing Reality in Leila Kilani's Our Forbidden Places (2008) and Kaouther Ben Hania's The Slasher of Tunis (2014), by Suzanne Gauch7. Documenting Tyranny: The Politics of Memory in Leila Kilani and Osvalde Lewat, by Herve Tchumkam8. Ecological Representations in African Women Documentaries, by Suzanne Crosta9. Looping the Loop: Rama Thiaw's The Revolution Won't Be Televised (2016), by Sada Niang10. Dancing with the Camera: Interview with Nadine Otsobogo, by Suzanne Crosta, Sada Niang, and Alexie TcheuyapIndex