African women in documentary films on Africa (1992-2006): North-South representations

This research study explores and compares the various production methods that some African and Western women documentary filmmakers tend to utilize in their portrayals of African women. The thesis primarily uses Mohanty's theory on the victimization of the Third World woman in feminist scholarly works to examine seven documentary films, namely: Chronicle of a Savannah Marriage, Child Brides, Virgin Diaries, Monday's Girls, These Hands, A Red Ribbon Around My House, and Class of 2006: Women Religious Leaders.;The thesis examines the ways in which some African women filmmakers have devised production methods that reflect their own cultural tastes and concerns, thereby modifying many of the classical tendencies in Western portrayals of African people. It also interrogates the ways in which Western films about African women may have evolved in more recent years. The thesis maintains, however, that despite efforts by some Western filmmakers to move away from a eurocentric way of representing African women, eurocentrism continues to be a prominent marker of many Western documentary films about that subject.