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image of Historicizing Bongo Movies: Postcolonial readings of cultural utopias and intangible realities

Abstract

are celebrated as a phenomenon that could only emerge, thanks to the coincidence of the technical video revolution on the one hand and the economic and political liberation following the era of structural adjustment in Tanzania on the other hand. This article provides an alternative reading of the emergence of as also rooted in the legacy of earlier post-independent Tanzanian film cultures, including the realms of filmmaking and reception and encompassing positive reference as well as demarcations. While the attempt to grasp as an emerging grassroots initiative has helped situate them in a political–economical sphere of production, consumption and policing or as a social ground for negotiating contemporary questions of identity and agency, this article attempts to add a historical perspective and contextualize them with the national specifics of Tanzanian cultural production since independence and recurrent themes of audio-visual representation. This article takes films concerned with ‘untangible realities’ as an example of themes that re-emerged throughout the decades by looking at certain works and scenes of recent films in more detail and reading them before the background of earlier representations. It looks at how urbanity, spirituality and relationships are tackled with new foci and sets of aesthetic and narrative styles. In addition, it traces legacies and ruptures in production conditions and decisions that were subject, throughout the decades, to precarious economic conditions, leading to a continuous compromise between economic dependence and creative freedom. In this regard, the emergence of can be seen as a new way to circumvent the dependence on foreign influence in the creative sector. Implied in this article’s discussion is the distinction of national cinemas and notions of world cinema. The specific Tanzanian attempt to not let these external attributions confine filmmakers’ self-images and agencies find expression in the notion of Bongo Movie as a strategic term of demarcation against limiting attributions.

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2025-07-02
2026-04-18

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  • Article Type: Article
Keywords: magical realism ; film history ; African film history ; audiovisual historiography ; video revolution ; Tanzania

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