Cinema of Africa covers both the history and present of the making or screening of films on the African continent, and also refers to the persons involved in this form of audiovisual culture. It dates back to the early 20th century, when film reels were the primary cinematic technology in use. During the colonial era, African life was shown only by the work of white, colonial, Western filmmakers, who depicted Africans in a negative fashion, as exotic "others". As there are more than 50 countries with audiovisual traditions, there is no one single 'African cinema'. Both historically and culturally, there are major regional differences between North African and sub-Saharan cinemas, and between the cinemas of different countries.
The cinema of Tunisia and the cinema of Egypt are among the oldest in the world. Pioneers Auguste and Louis Lumière screened their films in Alexandria, Cairo, Tunis, Susa, Libya and Hammam-Lif, Tunisia in 1896. Albert Samama Chikly is often cited as the first producer of indigenous African cinema, screening his own short documentaries in the casino of Tunis as early as December 1905. Alongside his daughter Haydée Tamzali, Chikly would go on to produce important early milestones such as 1924's The Girl from Carthage. In 1935, the MISR film studio in Cairo began producing mostly formulaic comedies and musicals, but also films like Kamal Selim's The Will (1939). Egyptian cinema flourished in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, considered its Golden Age. Youssef Chahine's seminal Cairo Station (1958) laid the foundation for Arab film.
The Nigerian film industry is the largest in Africa in terms of volume, number of annual films, revenue and popularity. It is also the second largest film producer in the world. In 2016, Nigeria's film industry contributed 2.3% to its gross domestic product (GDP).
History
Colonial era
During the colonial era, Africa was represented largely by Western filmmakers. In the first decades of the twentieth century, Western filmmakers made films that depicted black Africans as "exoticized", "submissive workers" or as "savage or cannibalistic". For example, see Kings of the Cannibal Islands in 1909, Voodoo Vengeance (1913) and Congorilla (1932). Colonial era films portrayed Africa as exotic, without history or culture. Examples abound and include jungle epics based on the Tarzan character created by Edgar Rice Burrou,and the adventure film The African Queen (1951), and various adaptations of H. Rider Haggard's novel King Solomon's Mines (1885).
One of the first films to be entirely produced in Africa was the South African dramatic film The Great Kimberley Diamond Robbery (1911). It was followed by De Voortrekkers (1916), South Africa's (and possibly Africa's) first epic film and oldest surviving film, about the Great Trek and targeted at an Afrikaner audience. A notable theme in early South African cinema was the ethnic confrontation between Afrikaner (specifically Boer) and British South Africans.
Much early ethnographic cinema "focused on highlighting the differences between indigenous people and the white civilised man, thus reinforcing colonial propaganda". Marc Allégret's first film,Voyage au Congo (1927) respectfully portrayed the Masa people, in particular a young African entertaining his little brother with a baby crocodile on a string. Yet Africans were portrayed merely as human, but not equals; a dialogue card, for example, referred to the movements of a traditional dance as naive. His lover, writer André Gide, accompanied Allégret and wrote a book, also titled Voyage au Congo. Allégret later made Zouzou, starring Josephine Baker, the first major film starring a black woman. Baker had caused a sensation in the Paris arts scene by dancing in the clad only in a string of bananas.
In the French colonies, Africans were prohibited by the 1934 Laval Decree from making films of their own. The ban stunted the growth of film as a means of African expression, political, cultural, and artistic. Congolese Albert Mongita did make The Cinema Lesson in 1951 and in 1953 Mamadou Touré made Mouramani based on a folk story about a man and his dog. In 1955, Paulin Soumanou Vieyra originally from Benin, but educated in Senegal along with his colleagues from Le Group Africain du Cinema, shot a short film in Paris, Afrique-sur-Seine (1955). Vieyra was trained in filmmaking at the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC) in Paris, and despite the ban on filmmaking in Africa, was granted permission to make a film in France. Considered the first film directed by a black African, Afrique Sur Seine explores the difficulties of being an African in 1950s France.