Instructional Cinema in Colonial Africa: An Historical Reappraisal

Abstract

Historians and critics of African cinema such as Diawara, Opubor and Nwuneli, Ekwuazi, Okome, Mgbejume, Malkmus and Armes, and Ukadike have cited the views of the sponsors, administrators and practitioners of instructional cinema in colonial Africa, views which were decidedly racist.They have concluded, often without seeing the films, that the films of colonial African instructional cinema were not different from those of colonialist African cinema.Ln this paper, the argument which I present is different from that of the aforementioned scholars.Ln the main, I argue that the introduction of instructional cinema in colonial Africa was borne out of the desire to use the film medium as a vehicle for instruction, social mobilization, and community development efforts.In this respect, the way in which African subjectivity and culture, in its varied nationalities, is constructed in the films of the Bantu Educational Cinema Experiment and similar projects inspired by this pioneer effort, such as those of the Colonial Film Unit (CFU) of the British colonial government, the Film and Photo Bureau and the Centre for Catholic Action Cinema (CCAC) of the Belgian Congo is different from that of colonialist African cinema.It is my opinion that the views of the practitioners of instructional cinema should not be used as a criteria for analyzing the films.Rather, the films themselves should be screened and analyzed to see how African subjectivity is constructed, to see if the films fulfill their objectives.

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