Max Annas – författare

Gaze Regimes is a bricolage of essays and interviews showcasing the experiences of women working in film, either directly as practitioners or in other areas as curators, festival programme directors or fundraisers. It does not shy away from questioning the relations of power in the practice of filmmaking and the power invested in the gaze itself. Who is looking and who is being looked at, who is telling women's stories in Africa and what governs the mechanics of making those films on the continent?The interviews with film practitioners such as Tsitsi Dangarembga, Taghreed Elsanhouri, Jihan El-Tahri, Anita Khanna, Isabel Noronhe, Arya Lalloo and Shannon Walsh demonstrate the contradictory points of departure of women in film – from their understanding of feminisms in relation to lived-experiences and the realpolitik of women working as cultural practitioners.The disciplines of gender studies, postcolonial theory, and film theory provide the framework for the book's essays. Jyoti Mistry, Antje Schuhmann, Nobunye Levin, Dorothee Wenner and Christina von Braun are some of the contributors who provide valuable context, analysis and insight into, among other things, the politics of representation, the role of film festivals and the collective and individual experiences of trauma and marginality which contribute to the layered and complex filmic responses of Africa's film practitioners.

Even by the time Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène (1923-2007) was forty, he had lived an exceptional life. He joined the French army during World War II and moved from Senegal to France in 1948. There he worked for automaker Citroën, as well as on the docks of Marseille. Exposed to Marxism, he participated in railroad strikes and trade union movements. His early novels and short story collections gained him literary recognition both in Senegal and throughout sub-Saharan Africa. In his fortieth year, Sembène directed the short film Borom Sarret, one of the first films directed by a black African and a movie that brought African cinema to the consciousness of the West. Sembène's subsequent films--including Black Girl, Mandabi, Xala, Ceddo, Faat Kiné, and Moolaadé--address contemporary African society and cultural issues with the filmmaker's characteristic wit and subtle satire. Known for urban themes and complex female protagonists, Sembène's movies, both in French and in his native language Wolof, are considered pioneering masterworks of African cinema. Ousmane Sembène: Interviews collects conversations from the mid-1960s to 2005, and spans the breadth of his filmmaking career while also touching on his literary work and his role as a public intellectual. Many of these interviews appear here in English for the first time and come from French, German, African diaspora, and Senegalese periodicals. Annett Busch is a writer based in Munich, Germany. Her work has appeared in Spex, CameraAustria, and Kolik. Max Annas of Cologne, Germany, is an author whose work has appeared in Filmdienst and Ecrans d'Afrique, as well as in several books.

Eight Hours. Minute by Minute.Somewhere in South Africa, a farm comes under heavy attack. No shooters in sight. Only one thing is certain: The attackers are savagely resolute. A diverse group of people barricade themselves inside the farmhouse: black and white; women, men, and children; bosses and workers; a police officer; random visitors. Who is the target of the attack? What has motivated it? Politics? Revenge? Greed? Drugs? Weapons? But do the people outside know more than those indoors? The snipers who are trying to operate in the dark of night? Who will die, who will survive? Who is pulling the strings? Who will be the winners, who will be the losers? And how long can eight hours actually be?Eight hours, minute by minute. Constant changes in perspective, piercing precision. An explosive mixture of psychological thriller and Neo-western with a political subtext.