Toward a Pan African Audiovisual Archival Movement in a Decolonized Global Context

This essay explores the challenges faced by the African film and audiovisual archiving community in order to take control of its archival destiny. Among them are vulnerabilities rooted in the political economy and geopolitics of film and AV preservation, many of which are rooted in longstanding historical relationships between Africa and many of her former colonizers. The essay argues that addressing these stumbling blocks will allow for the emergence of a genuinely autonomous and serenely relational Pan African film and audiovisual movement able to address the immense problems the continent faces in that domain. It also makes a case for the key transformational role the Global Audiovisual Archiving (GAVA) initiative might play in enabling this process.