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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSHere, as with all my writings about African filmmaking, I owe a huge debt toGuido Aristarco, who organised a series of conferences in Bulgaria in 1978–9in connection with a projected General History of World Cinema. This was thecontext in which I first met Ousmane Sembene, Paulin Soumanou Vieyra andFerid Boughedir and discovered, much to my surprise, that there was indeed anAfrican cinema, made by African filmmakers, happily far removed from theTarzan films I had devoured as a child. The encounter with what was stillunproblematically called ‘third world cinema’ changed for ever my hithertowholly Euro-centric approach to writing about film.This book owes its immediate existence to the persuasive powers of StevenJay Schneider and R. Barton Palmer, the patience of Sarah Edwards and myown dislike of prime numbers (I have previously published seventeen books).My thanks go to John Flahive of the BFI for a VHS copy of Aristotle’s Plot, toDominique Sentiles of Médiathèque des Trois Mondes, Cornelius Moore andGene Sklar of California Newsreel, and Renald Spech of ArtMattan for help inpurchasing video tapes. I am also very grateful to Jeanik Le Naour for arrangingParis screenings at ADPF and to Kevin Dwyer for his invaluable support onmany aspects of Moroccan cinema.I must also thank the following individuals and organisations for permissionto reproduce stills: the Montpellier International Festival for Bye Bye Africa,Duo Films for Abouna, La Vie sur terre (© Marie Jaoul de Poncheville andAnaïs Jeanneret) and Heremakono (© Kranck Verdier), California Newsreel forKeita, L’héritage du griot, ArtMattan Productions for Sia, Dani Kouyaté forOuaga Saga (© Didier Bergounhoux), Nomadis Images for Satin Rouge, andOptimum Releasing for Mille mois.vii