Black and White Bioscope recovers a neglected chapter in the histories of world cinema and Africa. It tells the story of movie production in Africa that long predated francophone African films and Nollywood that are the focus of most histories of this industry. At the same time as Hollywood was starting, a film industry in Southern Africa was surging ahead in integrating production, distribution, and exhibition. African Film Productions Limited made silent movies using technical and acting talent from Britain, the United States, and Australia, as well as from Africa. These included not only the original "long trek movie" and the prototype for the movies Zulu and Zulu Dawn but also the first King Solomon's Mines and the original Blue Lagoon, featuring African actors such as Goba, Tom Zulu, and Msoga Mwana, who starred as the black revolutionary in Prester John. In this lavishly illustrated book, fifty movies are reconstructed with graphic photographs and plot synopses--plus quotations from reviews--so that readers can rediscover this long-lost treasure trove of silent cinema.

Defining more than 10,000 words and phrases from everyday slang to technical terms and concepts, this dictionary of the audiovisual language embraces more than 50 subject areas within film, television, and home entertainment. It includes terms from the complete lifecycle of an audiovisual work from initial concept through commercial presentation in all the major distribution channels including theatrical exhibition, television broadcast, home entertainment, and mobile media. The dictionary definitions are augmented by more than 700 illustrations, 1,600 etymologies, and nearly 2,000 encyclopedic entries that provide illuminating anecdotes, historical perspective, and clarifying details.

Originally published: Auckland Park, South Africa: Jacana Media, 2009.

The Cinema Book is widely recognised as the ultimate guide to cinema. Authoritative and comprehensive, the third edition has been extensively revised, updated and expanded in response to developments in cinema and cinema studies. Lavishly illustrated in colour, this edition features a wealth of exciting new sections and in-depth case studies. Sections address Hollywood and other World cinema histories, key genres in both fiction and non-fiction film, issues such as stars, technology and authorship, and major theoretical approaches to understanding film.

Challenging established views and assumptions about traditions and practices of filmmaking in the African diaspora, this three-volume set offers readers a researched critique on black film. Volume One of this landmark series on African cinema draws together foundational scholarship on its history and evolution. Beginning with the ideological project of colonial film to legitimize the economic exploitation and cultural hegemony of the African continent during imperial rule to its counter-historical formation and theorization. It comprises essays by film scholars and filmmakers alike, among them Roy Armes, Med Hondo, Fèrid Boughedir, Haile Gerima, Oliver Barlet, Teshome Gabriel, and David Murphy, including three distinct dossiers: a timeline of key dates in the history of African cinema; a comprehensive chronicle and account of the contributions by African women in cinema; and a homage and overview of Ousmane Sembène, the "Father" of African cinema.

The Three Wise Monkeys trilogy culminates with a forensic examination of South Africa's long struggle to suppress gambling, and especially lotteries. The opposition of the Calvinist churches – both Afrikaans and English-speaking – had its counterpart in the eager embrace of games of chance by the white working class on the Witwatersrand. Focusing on the career of Rufe Naylor, an Australian bookmaker, horse dealer and entrepreneur who, with the help of a defrocked Portuguese Catholic priest, ran the Lourenço Marques Lottery, The Quest for Wealth without Work shows how the efforts of church and state to control the leisure time and morals of the working class intersected with the need to ensure the flow of cheap mine labour from Mozambique. Ultimately, in the suppression of the Lourenço Marques Lottery – and in campaigns against pinball machines, dog racing and other 'social evils' – can be seen the emerging outlines of the apartheid police state.