1963. Senegal again took the lead in sub-Saharan African filmmaking, when SembFne produced its first black African feature film in 1966, La Noire deà, and Safi Faye produced the first black African womenÆs film in 1975, Kaddu Beykatt. Thanks to Senegal, other Francophone countries were inspired to develop cinemas: Burkina Faso, Niger, Cameroon, Mali, and Mauritania; this Francophone cinema comprises 80% of Sub-Saharan cinema.
African cinema has been largely of the cinTma dÆauteur genre, a tendency that underlines the desire of African authors and filmmakers to ôconvey a message to the peopleö. Approximately 90% of African films are of this genre, and it reflects a didactic quality that is characteristic of the African film medium. Ousmane SembFne, who is considered the ôfather of African cinemaö and ôthe most significant pioneer of African Francophone cinema,ö is himself both author and filmmaker.
In the 1950Æs, there was a rash of anti-apartheid films, such as Lionel RogosinÆs 1959 semi-documentary, Come Back Africa, in which he used actual inhabitants of the Sophiatown area, whose community would be demolished soon after. Even an exiled filmmaker, Lionel Ngakane, contributed to this genre with his film Vukani Awake in 1964 and 1966. In the 1970Æs, African cinema was comprised of ôa plethora of state-funded light entertainment for Afrikaans-speaking whites,ö as well as a popular genreùborder filmsùthat portrayed South African soldiers fending off communist threats at the countryÆs borders. In 1980, the internationally successful comedy by James Uys, The Gods Must be Crazy, set a milestone for South African cinema that has yet to be surpassed. In the 1990Æs, there was a ôgradual loss of both external and internal funding for productionö and the ôslow but orchestrated disappearance of movie houses.ö Now, South African filmùalthough vibrant and engagingùis in a precarious state:
Afric...