Re-imagine a Continent.
Josef Gugler, African Film : Re-Imagining a Continent, 216 pages, 63 illustrations, 2 maps, 1 table. Paper $ 24.95, cloth $ 60.
Indiana University Press, 601 N. Morton Street, Bloomington, IN 47404-3797.
Josef Gugler invites his readers to "re-imagine Africa" by examining fifteen key films made by African directors and contrasting them with two very successful films on Africa, one from Hollywood, the other from apartheid South Africa. The films serve to highlight African directors' altogether different perspectives and introduce the primary concerns and issues that they address, from the recovery of African history to the struggle for majority rule in South Africa, from the fight against colonialism to the betrayals of independence and the neglect of the peasantry, with the position of women a recurrent theme.