Images Out of Africa

Virginia Garner

doi:10.5771/9780761853824

Summary

Missionaries played a fundamental role in introducing cinema into the developing world in the early twentieth century. These representatives of the Christian community diligently produced films about far-flung cultures to bolster fundraising for mission efforts around the globe. By the interwar period, a few husband-and-wife teams in Africa were making an array of films about vanishing cultures and the struggle to bring Christianity to indigenous populations. Images Out of Africa brings to light the remarkable expedition of one such team of filmmakers. In 1938, Virginia and Ray Garner, working for the Africa Motion Picture Project, ambitiously began making films in the Belgian Congo and French Cameroons, introducing film into villages for the first time. This book features Virginia Garner's recently rediscovered diaries, which highlight the challenges of making films in Africa in the 1930s and include rich descriptions of cross-cultural interactions and micro-negotiations with chiefs, headmen, and villagers.