140359 VO Southern African Cinematography (2014S)

The proposed course will trace the genealogy of Southern African [South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Angola, Zambia and Malawi] cinematography from colonial times through to the present day. The course begins in 1913 with the first major locally produced feature film Die Voortrekker (Harold M. Shaw, 1916) dramatizing the Afrikaaners’ historic trek from the Cape of Good Hope to what is now Zambia. The historical role of film as primarily a didactic or openly propagandistic tool has morphed in post-independence Africa into what is seen as part of a nation building exercise where a developing cinematic culture speaks for and to citizens of the emerging nations. Aspects of identity, representation and ideology will be examined via Warren Buckland’s The Cognitive Semiotics of Film and Slavoj Zizek’s Living in the End Times. Context, conditions of production and patterns of consumption will be presented to gain a deeper understanding of the specificities of Southern African cinematography. The course will present film from the region both chronologically and comparatively.