In a ‘Decolonizing Film and Screen Studies’ workshop Akande attended in Nigeria in 2020, the conversation on decolonizing African film studies was preoccupied with answering such questions as: what would a (more) decolonized African film studies look like? How do we get there with existing film theories? How is such a study conceptualized and taught? One of the key reveals of the workshop is that, as time has proven, we have been successful at coming up with relevant decolonization questions. The ongoing challenge, however, is that we are still largely in search of viable and effective answers. Like Kessi, Marks and Ramugondo (2020), we are still asking, “if everyone is decolonizing, why has so little changed?” This presentation continues the conversations at that workshop. Akande borrows from writers like Sandra Harding, Esiaba Irobi, and Nick Redfern to present that the West’s early universalization of its definitions of science and theorization have generated a degree of conditioning that non-Western understandings of film must also ‘toe the line’ if replicability remains a cardinal feature of ‘scientific’ findings. Consequently, an adherence to this mindset has necessitated a willing adoption of Eurocentric frameworks upon which African film scholars then decolonize film. Akande presents that a radicality may be necessary to break from this hierarchical structure of knowledge production; that African film scholars unapologetically explore vernacular and indigenous ways of conceptualizing film. And if these approaches neither conform to Western scientific processes, nor resemble anything Western-oriented Film Studies is saying, then so be it.

Lani Akande is an assistant professor in the Film Department at UNCW. He teaches courses in Nigerian cinema, African cinemas, postcolonial cinema and film aesthetics and style. His articles have appeared in Film Education, Journal of African Cultural Studies and Quarterly Review of Film and Video.