Interculturalization in African Cinema
Day by day our world becomes increasingly interconnected. People migrate across continents and ,among materialistic belongings, bring their culture with them. Once in contact with other cultures they can clash, coexist or move one step further: interact with each other. This is know as interculturalism. While cultural conflicts have been covered intensively by scholars such as Samuel P. Huntington who predicts culture clashes to be the main source of conflict in the post-cold war world (Kirkus Reviews) and various books about coexistence have been written such as “Positive Examples of Coexistence from the History of Peoples and States of the South Caucasus” by Haykaz Hovhannisyan et.al. While these…show more content… One of these areas has been the cinema. From the past to modernity African cinema has developed it's own identity by incorporating western film techniques and adapting it to their own culture to reconstruct the image of Africa, thus creating and intercultural…show more content… In his article, van Damme mentions “Galton's Problem” of cultural exchange and adoption of elements from foreign cultures (van Damme 376). The adoption of Hollywood film techniques and themes into movies can be seen as such an example of interculturalization in one way. As the concept intends to avoid the connotation of being a one-way, acculturation process (van Damme 381), the other way of exchange goes from Africa into the world. This is done by portraying contemporary Africa and the current issues on the continent. African filmmakers have recently focus on topics like changing view of homosexuality (Greyson and Lewis, Proteus), women's rights (Djama,Mollement, Un Samedi Matin) and Corruption (Jones, Africa: Living with Corruption). These movies, while providing entertainment still posses the deep rooted tenet of African cinema in them – the are didactic, critical and focus on contemporary issues important to civil society on the