Numerous disciplines have, over the years, adopted, adapted, and incorporated film studies into their curricula. Introducing film studies into the curriculum is an effective way of retaining viable student numbers in traditionally non-media disciplines. The Arnoldian-derived assumption that film has nothing to do with knowledge, reasoning or analysis has long since passed (or should have), as scholars from all disciplines now include film (and video) in the classroom. One of the first books to appear on the topic of history and the cinema was KRM Short’s Feature Films as History (1981) in which he argues the value of films as source material and explains how they provide an understanding of the societies and intellectual trends they both reflected and affected. Apart from The Historical Journal of Radio, Film and TV and Film and History, which have proven to offer key resources in the field, we can fast forward to Robert A Rosenstone’s History on Film / Film on History (2006). Rosenstone offers a detailed overview of what is meant by history on the screen. A recent anthology by Bickford and Mendelsohn (2006) on histories of cinema in and on Africa draws heavily on Rosenstone. In Australasia the annual and very well attended Film and History Conference is well entrenched, especially through the refereed online journal, Screening the Past.

My comment for this commemorative issue will briefly focus on my own contribution. The journal publication of the Grierson Report (1954) commissioned by a conservative South African Church organization, and its publication of a very challenging review by Samuel Lelièvre of Frank Ukadike’s book, Questioning African Cinema: Conversations with Filmmakers (2002) deserve mention. The Grierson Report had languished in mimeograph form in the National Film Archives (Pretoria) until 1999 when I was able to secure permission for it to be published in Screening The Past. This reproduction was accompanied by a detailed analysis of Grierson’s contribution to South Africa by me and Edwin Hees. Samuel Lelievre’s extensive review of Ukadike’s book, Questioning African Cinema (2002), I think, also needs attention, as it is one of the few published critical studies of Ukadike, a seminal scholar of Africa cinema. Basically, a book review, it is in fact a sustained critique, opening up a series of questions about Ukadike’s questions of African film directors.

In an academic environment where even refereed electronic journals remain second class citizens, Screening the Past has excelled in publishing top quality articles and making available previously inaccessible documents via open access. Screening the Past also reflects the extraordinary vibrancy of Australian scholarship, and its editors an outstanding commitment to the journal and all of those who have published in it.
Keyan G Tomaselli

Culture, Communication and Media Studies
University of KwaZulu-Natal
Howard College Campus, Durban.

Reference
Bickford-Smith, Vivian and Mendelsohn, Richard (eds.)  Black and White in Colour: African History on Screen. Oxford: James Currey; Athens: Ohio University Press; Cape Town: Double Story, 2006. 374pp.

Created on: Saturday, 15 December 2007