June Givanni

A journey through the archive of BAFTA award-winning curatorand film programmer, June Givanni. It contains thousands of films fromacross Africa, the Caribbean and the diaspora amassed in over forty years. Using four filmfestivals as her touchstones, author Onyeka Igwe offers a way to encounterPan-African film.

The book starts with Third Eye, the film festival thatpropelled June into a career in Pan-African cinema. Through connections shemade there, she travelled to FESPACO in 1985. Participating in the festivalwhile Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso was under the leadership of revolutionaryThomas Sankara was a formative experience. In Ouagadougou she connected withfilm programmers Suzy Landau and Claire Andrade Watkins, who would take steps toorganise Images Caraibes, Fort de France, Martinique, 1988, and Celebration ofBlack Cinema, Boston, US.

Using original oral history research with June and other keyfigures in Pan-African and Black British cinema, Onyeka uncovers the important role that womenfestival organisers, programmers and cultural workers have played inPan-African cinema history. She conceptualises June Givanni's Pan-African Cinema Archive (JGPACA) asa feminist counter archive that foregrounds marginalised histories and proposesa radical approach to archiving itself. In tracing and naming the cinematiclegacies that ground political filmmaking practices today, she preserves June'swork, knowledge and fervour for Pan African cinema for future generations.