This book argues that the construction of modern African identity in all spheres of life, including the cinematic institution, is a product of the Euro-African contact that started in the fifteenth century. Traditional African institutions, which were overlaid with European substitutes during the period of colonialism, were transformed by this contact; and although the post-colonial period, especially the earlier years, sought to romanticize traditional African institutions with its politics of cultural re-awakening, a pragmatic marriage of the institutional practices of both continents emerged over the years, resulting in new practices that could be considered hybrid in nature. Many of these new hybrid practices are presented through cinema, one of the modern institutions inherited from colonialism.
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