Films

Still from Amani Naphtali's short film Le Bohemian Noir et La Renaissance de L'Afrique (Courtesy Amani Naphtali)
Still from Amani Naphtali’s short film Le Bohemian Noir et La Renaissance de L’Afrique. Image features the singer Keziah Jones who is profiled in the film. Renowned for creating his own ‘Blue Funk’ music style.                        (Courtesy Amani Naphtali)

The greater part of the films held in the archive are on tape not celluloid and were collected during a pre-digital era. The collection consists of over 700 (VHS/Umatic/Beta) tapes and a large number of dvds (as yet un-quantified). The collection includes predominantly independent films and some television programmes (eg. episodes and trailer for the 1980s Ken Saro-Wiwa Nigerian sitcom series Basi and Company), and a few mainstream commercial films, from the UK, Africa and the African diaspora generally.

The films cover all genres: drama, documentary, animation, experimental films: features, shorts and mid-length films and some time-coded works in progress.   Most of the films in the archive will be able to be cross-referenced to other related materials in the archive, in due course.