Abstract

This dissertation analyses cinematic representation related to the politics of production and to a received body of knowledge on Africa. Burkinabè fiction film is used to investigate negotiated identities within differentiated, hierarchical, power structures.

External affiliation conceptualises the Franco-Burkinabè relationship by articulating power and knowledge within cinematic space. Affiliation occurs through knowledge constituting Africanness.

Exoticism, superreal, dichotomies, postcolonialism and national identity are contexts for film analysis, showing how films negotiate - simultaneously reinforce and reject - the themes.

Infrastructural affiliation occurs through national and international financing, production and distribution. The possibility of negotiation is also examined in this context. Production patterns and two filmic tendencies differentiate directors who are more or less active in Europe.

The power relations and knowledge which Europe deploys do not result in objectified dependency on screen.

External affiliation shows Europe's knowledge of Africa entering into relation with Africa's knowledge of itself and producing a negotiated new Africanness.

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