North and Sub-Saharan Africa at the Rencontres internationales pour un nouveau cinéma in Montreal, 1974: Background Notes

Abstract

This article focuses on the North and Sub-Saharan African guests at the Rencontres internationales pour un nouveau cinéma in Montréal in 1974. It seeks to situate them within the film environment they participated in shaping at home, in order to better understand their contribution and the dialogues they engaged with in Montréal. These participants came as representatives of specific instances and organizations, a testament to Africa’s growing regional and national film industries, which positioned the continent as a major actor in the defense of cinema in the Third World struggle against imperialism. I examine how the challenges and successes African filmmakers meet in developing regional alliances intersect with broader concerns in the Third World expressed at Montréal 1974.