The Lost Decade: African Cinema and the Disruption of the 1980s

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After dispatching the April 5 newsletter, African Feature Films at Cannes (1946–2024): A Data-Driven Chronicle, I thought it would be a good idea to step back and spend more time on one detail I only mentioned in passing: the near-absence of African films at Cannes during the 1980s.

At first glance, it might seem like a simple programming gap. But only two—at most three—African feature films were selected during that entire decade, compared to eight in the burgeoning post-independence 1970s. Anyone looking closely at the history of filmmaking across the continent, whether through the lens of festivals, public institutions, or any other kind of visibility, would notice the same void.

The absence wasn’t just about Cannes. It was a reflection of a collapse in support systems that affected film activity across entire countries.

The 1980s didn’t just slow things down; they interrupted the progress of the 1970s and deepened the uneven conditions many filmmakers still have to work around today. And even that didn’t happen in isolation. It was shaped by what came before: the deliberate underdevelopment of the colonial period, which left most countries with no real foundation on which to build a sustainable screen culture.

This piece tries to bring those threads together—not to rehash what’s already known, but to make the stakes clearer for where we are now.

This is not a lament.

It is not a plea for sympathy or charity. It is a clear-eyed analysis of the structural interruptions—historical and ongoing—that have shaped African cinema’s uneven evolution. The goal is not to romanticize the past or bemoan the present, but to clarify what it takes to build a future that is sustainable, sovereign, and real.

The Fragile Build-Up

The story of African cinema is often told as one of resilience: the post-independence burst of creativity in the 1960s and 70s, a modest resurgence in the 1990s, and a growing global presence in the 21st century.

But this framing skips over a period that’s often written off as a lull in filmmaking across the continent, even though it was actually a turning point—one that broke what little momentum had been building post-independence, and contributed to the uneven, externally dependent systems we see across much of the continent today.

Understanding what happened in that period helps explain why African cinema, even with increased global recognition and standout work, still faces structural limits that relent.

To interrogate the 1980s is to consider not only what was lost, but what never had a chance to form. And in doing so, we begin to see African cinema not as lagging behind a global *norm*, but as a project repeatedly denied the conditions to evolve on its own terms—locked out of the foundational decades of global cinema.

During the colonial period, most countries on the continent had no film schools, no production infrastructure, and in many cases, no legal right to make films. In French colonies, the 1934 Laval Decree, for all intents and purposes, outright banned Africans from filmmaking. It was only after independence, starting in the late 1950s, that cinema became a tool of cultural and political expression.

Filmmakers like Ousmane Sembène, Sarah Maldoror, Med Hondo, and Oumarou Ganda laid the groundwork for a distinctly African cinematic voice—one that reclaimed narrative, critiqued neocolonial systems, and sought to awaken mass consciousness.

By the 1970s, several countries had created fledgling national film bodies, launched festivals, and circulated films internationally. Cannes, FESPACO, Carthage—these platforms offered exposure. But beneath the surface, the industry was fragile. It relied heavily on foreign aid (notably France’s Ministry of Cooperation, now integrated into the Ministry of European and Foreign Affairs), and domestic exhibition remained limited.

Still, there was momentum. A pan-African cinema was not just imagined—it was underway.

The Lost Decade

Then came the 1980s. Not war or colonization, but something perhaps more insidious: economic suffocation, political neglect, and institutional collapse. What had been slow growth in the 70s came to a near standstill, country by country, cinema hall by cinema hall.

“Economic suffocation” is not a metaphor. In the late 1970s and early 80s, many African countries were financially cornered. Their economies were tied to a handful of exports—oil in Nigeria, cocoa in Ghana, and copper in Zambia. When global prices crashed after the oil shocks and inflation of the 70s, earnings dried up.

At the same time, these countries were paying off loans taken during the post-independence boom to fund infrastructure and show development. Many of these loans were encouraged by Western institutions. When the U.S. raised interest rates sharply around 1980, repayment costs ballooned. Debts held in dollars became impossible to service.

To be sure, this was not unique to Africa—Latin America and Southeast Asia faced similar crises—but Africa’s weaker industrial base and reliance on raw exports made it especially vulnerable. The continent’s countries turned to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank for help. But the rescue packages came with strict conditions: Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), which mandated cuts to public spending, privatization, and currency devaluation.

In theory, SAPs were meant to create leaner, more competitive economies. In practice, they gutted public institutions. Culture, education, and media were among the first to go. National film boards, cinema departments, and support structures were defunded or eliminated altogether. Cinemas lost subsidies for rent, power, and ticketing. Theaters closed en masse.

The very conditions that made post-independence filmmaking possible were dismantled.

Currency devaluation made things worse. Film stock, cameras, sound gear—all imported—became prohibitively expensive. Shooting on 16mm or 35mm was suddenly out of reach. Production didn’t just slow—it stopped.

In Senegal, a bellwether for auteur cinema, output all but ceased. In fact, Ousmane Sembène—arguably the most internationally recognized African filmmaker at the time, and certainly the most visible from sub-Saharan Africa—made three feature films in the 1970s. In the 1980s, he made just one. And even that came after an eleven-year gap. “Ceddo” (1977) was followed more than a decade later by “Camp de Thiaroye” (1988). The timeline speaks for itself.

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s Yoruba-language cinema collapsed. Traveling cinema caravans and community screenings disappeared. Even those with skill and drive found themselves without options.

The damage went further: training programs shut down, new talent went undeveloped, and audience habits shifted. Imported VHS tapes—American action, Indian musicals, Hong Kong kung-fu—became dominant. Piracy exploded. Paying to see African films became rare.

Festivals like FESPACO carried on, but with fewer films and less attention. Of course, Cannes, Berlin, and Venice featured fewer African titles. Exceptions like Souleymane Cissé’s “Yeelen” (1987) were rare.

Meanwhile, authoritarianism was rising. In countries like Kenya and Zaire (now the DRC), state censorship made political cinema dangerous. In South Africa, apartheid still blocked most Black filmmakers. Filmmaking wasn’t just hard—it was risky.

By the end of the decade, the silence was loud. African cinema had not evolved. It had been structurally silenced—not during war, but during “independence,” when cultural sovereignty should have been taking root.

A Mirror in the Diaspora?

The African-American film experience during the same period makes for a noteworthy parallel. After the politically charged surge of the 1960s and 70s, the 1980s saw a sharp downturn. After the blaxploitation boom and growing independent filmmaking movements of the 70s, Hollywood re-centered white narratives. Aside from exceptions like Eddie Murphy, films with Black leads largely vanished, as did Black filmmakers.

As was the case across Africa, this wasn’t a talent problem. It was an access problem. But by the late 80s and early 90s, a new wave—Spike Lee, Julie Dash, John Singleton, Hudlin Brothers, and others—revived the space, supported by new funding and a shifting cultural climate.

Africa, too, saw a revival. Diaspora directors, co-productions, and Nollywood helped reignite the sector. But the 1980s had left a deep scar. The 1990s recovery wasn’t a continuation—it was a reinvention. Something had been broken.

What Might Have Been…

If momentum from the 70s had continued, the 80s could have been a decade of consolidation:

– National film bodies might have become sturdy funding and training centers.
– A second generation of directors could have sharpened their craft.
– Cinemas might have expanded instead of vanishing.
– African films could have competed more regularly on the international stage.
– Regional African markets might have formed across the continent’s language zones.
– Popular and auteur cinema could have developed in tandem.

Instead, the 1990s began with a rebuild.

The Present: Leaping Without Foundations

Today, African cinema is globally visible. Films from Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia, South Africa, and Nigeria screen at major festivals. Streamers commission African content. New voices emerge each year.

And yet, fragility persists. Many countries still lack film policy, commissions, public funding, or archives. Cinemas are scarce. Foreign content dominates. Success is often individual, not systemic.

Africa is being asked to leap into the global present without ever having been allowed to develop its own cinematic past. Colonization delayed the start. The 1980s disrupted the rise. Now, in a market defined by algorithms and scale, African cinema is trying to play catch-up on borrowed templates.

So when people reductively question whether Africa’s creative sector, particularly film, “is ready for investment,” it misses the point. The right response isn’t dismissal. It’s rethinking what “investment” should mean in the African context. Not handouts. Not charity. Recalibrated expectations. Longer timelines. Infrastructure, not just content.

At the same time, African creatives must meet that reality with patience and realism. This isn’t about grievance—it’s about clarity. The continent doesn’t need to mimic Western models, but it does need systems that mix public and private support, autonomy, and collaboration. That’s the work ahead.

But understanding that trajectory is not an excuse. It’s clarity. It tells us why the sector across the continent feels so uneven, why success feels so individual, and why sustainability remains elusive.

To reclaim the future, we must reckon with the past, especially the decade we rarely discuss. The 1980s weren’t a dip. They were a disruption. A turning point when a self-determined African cinema was choked before it could grow.

Revisiting that decade helps us see not only what was lost, but what still needs to be built: institutions, policy, infrastructure, audiences. The renaissance is real, but brilliance alone won’t sustain it.

The question isn’t just “what if?” It’s “What now, and who builds it?”

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