Abstract

African films sometimes do not fit into pre-established genre models, which should follow a contemporary and fluid trend where genres exist and serve as a code of understanding and orientation, which is constantly changing. In this sense, this abstract proposes to present a survey of films in the area of African cinema, starting from the concept of musical, instituted and categorized by the Hollywood film industry, discussing some demands that have arisen in the recognition of the “musical” and/or “music” classification of African films. The initial corpus of the research is West Indies ou Les négres marroms de la liberté (Med Hondo, Mauritania, 1979); La vie est belle (Ngangura Dieudonné Mweza; Benoît Lamy, Congo; 1986); Tableau ferraille (Moussa Sene Absa, Senegal, 1997); Karmen Geï (Carmen Negra, Joseph Gaï Bamaka, Senegal, 2001); L’extraordinaire destin de Madame Brouette (Moussa Sene Absa, Senegal, 2002), Nha fala (Flora Gomes, Guinea-Bissau, 2002); U-Carmen eKhayelitsha (Carmen in Africa, Mark Dornford-May, South Africa, 2005); Un Transport en Commun (Dyana Gaye, Senegal, 2009), in which we seek to understand how these films approach or distance themselves from the characteristics and criteria of the classic musical, as well as to understand how they are used and negotiated by filmmakers, based on theoretical discussion and film analysis, seeking to highlight details of the narrative and its musicality.