The Musical or the Lack Thereof

The musicals made in Egypt and Asia form a genre that is always highly popular with audiences in Africa. Yet the continent's filmmakers seem practically to ignore this art form, which has fed their own imaginations. What with the Egyptian musicals, Asian adventure films, and American productions, little place is left on Africa's screens for its local tales. However, even if African productions still face the same distribution difficulties on the continent, their singularity has developed and become more polished since Independence. It a priori seems paradoxical, therefore, that Africa's directors only rarely go down the musical route in cultures that are impregnated with music, song, dance, humour