Miriam Makeba and South African Cinema

Film Studies For Free was very sad to hear news of the death of Miriam Makeba.

As part of her monumental singing career she appeared in person and on the soundtrack of many films (including: Soul Power (2008); Bobby (2006); Transamerica (2005); Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony (2002); Sacred Sounds (2000); When We Were Kings (1996) Sarafina! (1992); Have You Seen Drum Recently? (1988); Amok (1982); and Come Back, Africa (1960), as discussed by Ntongela Masilela in a great 1991 article for Jump Cut).

She so often embodied the sound of global, cinematic South-Africanicity. And, thanks in part to all her film performances, she will sing on for us.

In memory of Makeba, some good (mainly South) African cinema web-links follow:

• Cinema of South Africa – Wikipedia
• Class and Ideology: Reflections in South African Cinema (Keyan G. Tomaselli for Critical Arts Journal)
• Jacqueline Maingard, South African Cinema in the 1940s: Reviewing Black Identities
• “Come Back Africa” and South African film history by Ntongela Masilela
• Sub-Saharan African film by Manthia Diawara
• Martin Mhando, “Approaches to African Cinema Study.” Senses of-Cinema
• Francoise Pfaff, “New African Cinema.” Cineaste v22, n4 (Fall, 1996):58
• Rod Stoneman, “African Cinema — Addressee Unknown.” Kinema, Spring 1994
• Mbye Baboucar Cham, “Film Text and Context: Reweaving Africa’s Social Fabric Through Its Contemporary Cinema.”
• The South African Film Industry: Fragmentation, Identity Crisis … (Martin P. Botha)
• The Struggle for a South African Film Audience (Martin P. Botha)
• 110 Years of South African Cinema (Part 1) Martin P. Botha
• 110 Years of South African Cinema (Part 2) Martin P. Botha
• New Directing Voices in South African Cinema (Martin P. Botha)
• Haile Gerima: An African Film Master (Ntogela Masilela).
• Issues in the South African Cinema (Ntogela Masilela).
• Is there a South African National Cinema? (Ntogela Masilela)
• Thelma Gutsche: A Great South African Film Scholar (Ntogela Masilela).
• Kamran Rastegar, Arab and African Cinema’s Uncertain Future (Vertigo Magazine)
• The Cinema of Manie van Rensburg: Popular Memories of Afrikanerdom …
• Culture, Communication and Media Studies – Cinema on the Periphery …
• Homosexuality and South African Cinema
• UC Berkeley Library African Cinema Bibliography
• BFI African Cinema Bibliography
• UStanford Guide to African Films Movies and Video on the Internet
• Manthia Diawara, African Cinema: Politics & Culture (Google Books)
• CAS – Cambridge African Film Festival
• Africa in Motion, the Edinburgh African film festival
• Kamran Rastegar’s article on Youssef Chahine (commissioned by Africa in Motion)
• Trevor Steele Taylor’s article on AiM After Hours: African cinema off the tourist map (commissioned by Africa in Motion)
• Paula Callus’s article on African animation (commissioned by Africa in Motion)
• N. Frank Ukadike, The Hyena’s Last Laugh: A conversation with Djibril Diop Mambety
• Djibril Diop-Mambety’s Tales of Little People on DinaView (Dina Iordanova)
• From African Studies Centre, University of Leiden, FSFF obtained the following links to articles:
• Disarticulating Black Consciousness: a way of reading films about apartheid / Tomaselli, Keyan. In: Safundi: the Journal of South African and American Comparative Studies, no. 10 (April), 2003. See document
• African cinema: an interview with Mali’s Souleymane Cissé / Cissé, Souleymane. In: Africa Update., vol. 9, no. 3 (Summer), 2002. See document
• Nigerian cinema revisited / Emeagwali, Gloria and Abiola, Mike. In: Africa Update, vol. 8, no. 4 (Fall), 2001. See document
• Interview with Nigerian actress Golda John on Nigerian film / Emeagwali, Gloria and John, Golda. In: Africa Update, vol 7, no. 2 (Spring), 2000. See document
• A confusion of cinematic consciousness: Southern Africa on film in the United States / Tomaselli, Keyan and Shepperson, Arnold. In: Safundi: the Journal of South African and American Comparative Studies, no. 3 (October), 2000. See document
• African cinema in the nineties / Cham, Mbye. In: African Studies Quarterly, vol. 2, no. 1,1998. See document
• Contemporary African film at the 13th Annual Carter Lectures on Africa: interviews with filmmaker Salem Mekuria and film critic Sheila Petty / Gearhart, Rebecca. In: African Studies Quarterly, vol. 2, no. 1, 1998. See document
• Framing post-Third-Worldist culture: gender and nation in Middle Eastern/North African film / Shohat, Ella. In: Jouvert, vol. 1, no. 1, 1996. See document
• How Francophone African cinema reflects social and political reality / Doiron, Jeanne. In: Africa Update, vol. 2, no. 3 (Summer), 1995. See document
• Two online journals with lots of comparative studies of African cinema:
• Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies
• Jouvert: A Journal of Postcolonial Studies
• An article on ‘African music’ in cinema generally – The Film Score and the African Musical Experience: Some comments on a work in progress by Andrew L. Kaye
• And, finally, a brilliant discussion group and website: H-AfrLitCine [an H-Net Network discussing African Literature and Cinema]