Author: Tambay A. Obenson

Whenever I reference the “the damage is done” statement from the 1979 manifesto “What is Cinema For Us?” by Med Hondo, regarding Western cinema’s dominance and its impact on African visual culture, I’m often (though certainly not always) met with a mix of confusion, curiosity, and sometimes pushback. The statement typically surfaces in conversations about […]

The story of Nigerian cinema this century has largely been told through a handful of voices with international profiles – figures like Mo Abudu, Kunle Afolayan, and more recently, various individual deals with streamers like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, and other international studios. Their narratives, amplified by the mainstream media’s preference for simple success stories, […]

Upon further reflection on the uproar surrounding Nigerian filmmaker Kunle Afolayan’s recent Netflix “canceled projects” comments, a few even more fundamental questions arose about how we evaluate Netflix’s engagement with African markets. When examining Netflix’s eight-year presence in Africa, the data suggests a measured pattern of engagement. For example, from 2016-2022, Netflix’s own 2023 report […]

There is a second Frantz Fanon film coming, following Abdenour Zahzah’s “The True Chronicles of the Blida Joinville Psychiatric Hospital in the Last Century, when Dr. Frantz Fanon Was Head of the Fifth Ward between 1953 and 1956” (yes, that’s the official title), which made its world premiere at the 2024 Berlinale. The second film, […]

A complete retrospective of Khady Sylla’s five films was hosted by the Amiens International Film Festival (November 15-23, 2024), in Amiens, France, as part of a global revival of the Senegalese filmmaker’s work. As French filmmaker of Senegalese and Congolese ancestry Johanna Makabi discussed at length on France’s RFI’s “Tous Les Cinémas Du Monde” (All […]

“The festival’s self-designation as “international” naturally suggests, even demands, diversity across its lineup, jury composition, and honorees. Yet, while some measure of global representation should be expected, the festival’s pronounced Western focus remains striking. This orientation becomes particularly noteworthy when considered against the current state of Africa’s fragmented, uneven, and globally underrepresented cinemas – a […]

Haile Gerima’s 2021 assertion that the current generation of African filmmakers must reflect on a continent that has “lost its mind” could be read as a provocative starting point for contemplating Africa’s colonial legacy. The statement, maybe jarring at first, begins to resonate when we consider the continent as an entity that has endured over […]

On November 29, 2024, French President Emmanuel Macron for the first time publicly recognized the Thiaroye massacre as such – the killing of West African soldiers by French forces at a military camp near Dakar, Senegal, on December 1, 1944. The timing is key: Macron’s statement arrived on the eve of the massacre’s 80th anniversary […]

The post-COVID years have brought a spike in African screen industry funding announcements, with 2024 alone seeing roughly $1.2 billion (likely more) pledged through development bank programs, government initiatives, and private equity funds. While these figures are promising, the gap between announcements and actual deployed capital remains a critical issue. To address this, I’ve started […]

The histories of individual African cinema cultures remain largely undocumented, even in written form, often overshadowed by broad “African film history” texts and occasional specialized focus academic studies, which rarely reach general audiences. This makes Timothy Niwamanya’s “A History of Film in Uganda” especially valuable as a visual record capturing a specific national film history […]