Research in African Literatures, a peer-reviewed academic journal, has published an article by Assistant Professor of French George MacLeod, titled “Jacqueline Kalimunda’s Interactive Love Stories: Transmedia Documentary in Present-Day Rwanda.” The article is part of a special journal issue entitled “African Audiences: Making Meaning Across Media.” It looks at an ambitious transmedia documentary project by the France-based Rwandan filmmaker Jacqueline Kalimunda, the first of its kind by a Rwandan filmmaker. MacLeod examines the barriers to production and distribution that face Rwandan filmmakers and asks if digital film and internet distribution have the potential to make Rwandan films more accessible to local audiences both within Rwanda and across Africa.
The article is based on MacLeod’s presentation at a 2017 Conference at the University of Bristol (UK) sponsored by an interdisciplinary grant-funded initiative entitled “Popular Print and Reading Cultures in Francophone Africa,” which has worked with scholars in the United Kingdom, France, and West Africa to preserve African cultural production through digitization and public exhibitions.
